Is this Gayness still a crime?

Politics and Homophobia - Not only an American Problem

The French did it, the Germans are hesitating and the Americans are debating. Granted thousands of people raged against the decision of the French parliament to grant homosexuals the right to marry and to adopt,  still, the French president kept his promise and punched the bill through. 329 to 229 votes, is not exactly a small margin for equality in a country that coined the slogan, Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité. But of course in France like in Germany the hardcore opposition, namely the church is affraid that homosexual marriage would lead to the corruption of morality, according to Archbishop Philippe Barbarin "it opens the doors for group sex and polygamy", and obviously polemic, because for him allowing homosexual couples to marry is as bad as incest. Then again ever since 1789 the church in France had to keep out of the day-to-day politics, so their stance might just be seen a relic from the olden days, before the nobility and the clerics got sacked by the people. Especially when a majority of the French people is in favour of the new law, it could be difficult for those 15.000 regional politicians who oppose it on principal.

While in the US all men are created equal, marriage is protected under constitutional law in Germany. A country where church and state are legally separated, still clings to Christian values for dear life, protecting the sanctity of marriage. Of course one could argue marriage is just another socio-political label. Holy matrimony in Germany and even the arch-conservative Bavaria is not what it once was. One in two marriages ends in divorce. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is upon his third wife, former foreign minister Joschka Fischer upon his fifth and the list goes on. Horst Seehofer made headlines as an adulterer with a child born out of wedlock. His wife forgave him and took him back. So if our civilisation is determined by marriage, it is already gone with wind. Still, he along with his comerade  in arms form CSU and CDU they propagate traditional family values. His voters might just call it the height of hubris.  So what if marriage is protected by an article in the constitution. Every other  partnership is an aberration. CDU hardliner like Norbert Geis would also call it a sin against God, not according to the norm, for him its an affliction that can be cured . Yet, with dark past he cannot go as far as suggesting state funded re-education camps like in the US.  The New York Times recently speculated about the Nazi-era roots of homophobia in Germany, but it's not that simple. Naturally, the victims of Nazi-era homophobia got a monument in Berlin (2008) but what about the victims of post-war homophobia? Adenauer and his cohorts who wrote the constitution also thought it was a good idea to include a paragraph on criminal sodomy. In 1957 a landmark decision of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Constitutional Court) declared discrimination against homosexuals legal, until 1994. 50,000 men were convicted of sodomy in a post-war democracy. Of course their records were not expunged, nor did they get a formal apology.Germany has no pluralistic society but a pseudo-religious bias against against deviating from the norm that is marriage. In that respect, Bavaria is sometimes just the 51st state, where the criminal sodomy statute may have disappeared from official legal texts but, discrimination runs rampant. Why is  Horst Seehofer's (CSU) marriage any more valid  than the relationship of his esteemed colleague Guido Westerwelle (FDP) with his partner?

Maybe it 's an age thing? Most politicians tend to be more distinguished with greying hair, living not so silent witnesses of a by-gone era, where it was okay to be racist. If you asked Herman Gröhe (CDU) there is actually no need for the current debate about the rights of homosexuals because it's just another minority of mostly actors and artists, creative folks; it's not the norm in Germany. And Gerda Hassfeld would add to that, any future for German society lies with the traditional family, father, mother and child. Of course the number of single parents is also on the rise in Germany.

What could possibly constitute as a good argument to defend discrimination? It's not a question of moral high ground. Nor is it particularly democratic. And is it even possible to have any kind of civilized debate about the issue, without polemic and exaggeration. In the US homosexual marriage threatens children and hurts religious freedom and of course the constitution. Of course 200 years ago those guys who wrote the US constitution where actually pro-slavery, anti-feminist, class-oriented plantation owners, some would like to believe that today America progressed and flourished as a society, where all men are created equal. But then the old guard in German politics, especially in Bavaria, is hardly better. 60 years ago when the new constitution took effect, homophobia was the law, that was a time when being different meant being killed or incacerated, the question remains why would anyone want to evoke the ghosts of those dark days?

Of course it is only for the children. How would they learn traditional family values if they are raised by daddy and well daddy? The law in Germany is a bit unclear about that in fact, it is a bureaucratic thing of beauty that allows discrimination under the guise of equality. Technically gay couples are allowed to take care of children as sort of foster parents, they are just not allowed to go through with the adoption. Hypocrisy? Maybe? Let's face it a child that is already in the system probably doesn't give a damn about homosexual couples adopting him or her. They are probably more than a little overjoyed by the tiny fact, that they don't have to spend the rest of their childhood in an orphanage or a bunch of  different foster homes where they are asked to leave after they turned 18 with no support system and no one who cares, not even the fabled family value politicians.

It's a clash of principals, nothing more and nothing less, but in the end in spite of the principals, politicians are just representatives of the people and a majority in Germany and probably even the US would actually vote in favour of a bill that allows gay marriage, with all the privileges and duties that institution holds.