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GERMANY
Same-sex marriage debateParliament debates proposal
Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag, began debate in July over a controversial bill that would allow same-sex civil unions that would extend all of the benefits and rights of marriage to same-sex couples.
The bill was mainly opposed by conservative parties, including the Christian Social Union (SCU), which is centered in mainly Catholic Bavaria. Norbert Geis, a spokesman for SCU, said: “For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic, the special position of marriage has been called into question.” The German post-war constitution grants rights and responsibilities specifically to marriage.
Geis said the Reichstag should not offend the majority of German people and the nation’s churches to grant special rights to a few thousand homosexual and lesbian couples. He said experiences in other countries that have adopted same-sex civil union registries have shown relatively few people take advantage of the service.
Volker Beck, one of the few openly homosexual politicians in Germany and a member of the left-wing Green Party, said the bill was important to ensure justice for all members of society. “The legislation is a milestone for justice in Germany,” said Beck. Homosexual activists have run a high-profile campaign in support of the proposal, hearkening back to repression of homosexuals by Nazis, although they have tended to ignore that many leaders of the Nazi movement were themselves homosexual or expressed such tendencies.
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