Marriage is a man and a woman living together

[Alex K]

Religion has no place in politics. Germany is supposed to be a secular state, yet here we are once again with a Christian leader bringing her "Christian values" into politics.

Can't say I'm that surprised, Germany is a bit like America in that despite being "secular" religion still has quite a strong presence. I do think we'll live to see gay marriage there though, Germany is hardly a bad place to be gay, public attitudes to it are apparently very liberal and there's strong support.

Formally, Germany isn't as secular as the US by a long shot.
Still, there are worse places for being gay. Until recently, both our minister of foreign affairs and the mayor of Berlin were openly gay, appearing with partner at official functions, and no one cared.
Oh, and fuck the Christian Democratic Union. I've never voted for them, and never will.

[Regina]

Any party that calls itself "[insert religion here] democratic party" isn't a party anyone should trust. Ever.

Random side-note as well, am I the only one that has noticed that every country in the world with "democratic" in it's official name is anything but democratic?

[Alex K]

If you have to say it for people to notice...

But I think a serioys reason would be that "democratic" in communist circles not always means making a decision following some numerical majority of the people, but according to an abstract "will of the people" which communist parties believe to be able to determine through deliberations among themselves, and which is not necessarily represented by majorities in elections. Hence, such "democratic" systems tend to degenerate to dictatorships.

[vorlon13]

This separate but equal reminds me of sexists who say "different but equal", specially Christians trying to justify why women should stay at home and be a mother because that's an awesome job and it doesn't make them inferior to not be able to do anything properly - Because you know, that's totally not sexist

I have no problem with Christian democrat parties, some people in those parties are not Christian because it's open to different right wing and center right ideologies, but I do agree that in Germany religion has no place in politics.

This reminds of my professor of Law History, who being a devout Christian thought that prohibiting gay marriage isn't discrimination because it's not against gay people but same sex marriage, so gay people can still marry the opposite sex and straight people can't marry same sex people, therefore it's equal

That made my brain hurt.

[Dystopia]

Any party that calls itself "[insert religion here] democratic party" isn't a party anyone should trust. Ever.

Random side-note as well, am I the only one that has noticed that every country in the world with "democratic" in it's official name is anything but democratic?

I feel like any person could make the same statement as you and replace "Christian democratic party" with something they don't like - It would work just as well. It's a subjective statement because some people are benefited for the party - Otherwise why is she still in charge?

Yes, democracy can have different meanings - Fascists believe in democracy, only they consider regular democracy to be extreme and degenerate, and they consider corporatism as the optimal democratic system because there's representatives of both workers, employers and the government. Ancient Greece had democracy, but it wasn't like democracy nowadays. If you can justify a one party socialist system it's very easy to use the concept of socialist democracy to justify why the "socialist will" triumphs regardless of what a minority of outsiders and traitors think (even it those traitors are the majoirty)

[Pyrrho]

...

This reminds of my professor of Law History, who being a devout Christian thought that prohibiting gay marriage isn't discrimination because it's not against gay people but same sex marriage, so gay people can still marry the opposite sex and straight people can't marry same sex people, therefore it's equal

The same reasoning would apply to prohibiting interracial marriage.  Everyone is free to marry their own race, but not another race.  Indeed, the same reasoning would apply to prohibiting marriage between any two categories of people however defined.  Must have the same eye color, hair color, religion, ethnicity, etc.  One can see how fascist such things could be following that pattern.

The reality is, though, with banning same sex marriage, it means that men are not allowed to marry men, but women are allowed to marry men.  So that is discrimination against men, as they lack an option that women have.  And women are not allowed to marry women, but men are allowed to marry women.  So that is discrimination against women, as they lack an option that women have.

[abaris]

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Anyone surprised of such a statement coming from an ex-fascist country?

Color me unsurprised by such a statement from you. You're a lover of blanket statements after all. German diversity may be yet another topic you might want to educate yourself on before running your mouth. Not everyone is conservative and not every party holds the same views as the Christian Social Union.

Germany is one of the select few countries having had an outspoken gay secretary of state and two outspoken gay mayors of large cities, coming from three different parties.

[Dystopia]

Anyone surprised of such a statement coming from an ex-fascist country?

Hey shithead, I come from an ex-fascist country - And contrary to what people believe, fascism is extremely frowned upon and the far-right is overwhelmingly weak compared to countries like France that have never been fascist (probably because they don't have the experience advantage). Since when is being ex-fascist bad? It's history, get over it. By your reasoning all Russians should feel bad because Russia was a dictatorship, and all Italians must punish themselves because they were fascist someday not so long ago. Can you name a place in Europe where a sovereign person has never ruled with too much power, ever?

[Dystopia]

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Anyone surprised of such a statement coming from an ex-fascist country?

Color me unsurprised by such a statement from you. You're a lover of blanket statements after all. German diversity may be yet another topic you might want to educate yourself on before running your mouth. Not everyone is conservative and not every party holds the same views as the Christian Social Union.

Germany is one of the select few countries having had an outspoken gay secretary of state and two outspoken gay mayors of large cities, coming from three different parties.

I still don't really understand the outrage - I believe it is not the first time Merkel speaks out against gay marriage, and she is a member of the CDU so were people expecting a super liberal position? She isn't advocating executing gays or sending them to concentration camps, she isn't supporting marginalization or anything like that, she just thinks marriage as a legal contract should be between people with opposite biological sexes. Stop making fusses, not everyone is socially liberal, so reacting as if it was the end of the world is ridiculous. The German CDU seems center-right on the European scale, but I'm positive they despise nazis and national-socialists.

Germany has strong anti-Holocaust laws (perhaps too strong) and the post-war constitution is surprisingly coherent and well written - It tries to balance everyone's rights and protect as many people as possible. It is probably one of the safest countries for Jews in the world, contrary to what most believe. 

Can you imagine what would happen if America had an outspoken gay president or mayor?

[Pizza]

In USA gay-marriage is a big deal because legal benefits were being denied for same sex couples(civil unions didn't have all the legal benefits of marriage), and the laws varied from state to state. I don't know if Germany has this problem.