Germany: Civil Or Equality?

From DW:
"A look at the state of same-sex partnerships under German law"

In 2001, Germany introduced legal partnerships for same-sex couples. They now have nearly all of the same rights as married couples, but nearly 15 years later, the question remains: why is there still a difference?  The debate on gay marriage was reignited in Germany this week following Ireland's historic referendum, which saw over 60 percent of voters in the Catholic stronghold support marriage for same-sex couples. As Jens Spahn - a leading politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - told the German newspaper "Die Welt": "You would think what the Irish Catholics can do, we could do, too." Heterosexual couples in Germany do not receive a special status as co-habitants and, thus, have only the option of marrying to be recognized as a family unit under the law.  By contrast, same-sex couples can only enter into a so-called "registered life-partnership," a legal civil union introduced in 2001, which shares many of the benefits and obligations of a legally recognized marriage. This right has been expanded over the past 14 years, including an extension of tax breaks in 2013 and the right to so-called successive adoption in 2014. So, aside from the limitations to adoption rights, the major difference that remains is the use of the term "marriage" itself. It may appear to be a war of words from the outside, but both sides are saying that more is at stake than one single word, with supporters calling it a human rights issue and opponents underscoring their sacrosanct view of the protection of the family. Despite numerous signs at the federal level of support for a change - including rulings by the country's top court, support from the upper house of parliament and calls from the country's anti-discrimination agency - the main hindrance to gay marriage in Germany appears to be Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, with the chancellor herself saying in 2013 that she "had a hard time" with the issue. "There is a majority in the Bundestag for opening up marriage [to homosexual partners]. But then there's the [issue of] preserving peace within the coalition," the director of the Lesbian and Gay Assocation (LSVD), Klaus Jetz, told DW, refering to the CDU/CSU's partnership with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). Unlike in Ireland, the German Constitution only allows for national referendums on two issues: the restructuring of federal territory or redrafting the Constitution. And unlike in the United States, German states do not have the power to decide individually on gay marriage. Thus, the decision would fall to a vote by the Bundestag's 631 parliamentarians, nearly 80 percent of whom belong to the governing coalition. And according to Jetz, the lawmakers are unlikely to vote against their own party, or coalition partner.

 

^ You need to take Germany's history into account in this long debate. Countries like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, etc considered homosexuality an illness and arrested gay people or didn't allow them to serve in government jobs or their military. Countries like the Soviet Union considered homosexuality an illness and arrested gay people  - sending them to the Gulags or from the 1970s on - psychiatric hospitals. The Germans made homosexuality illegal from 1871 until 1994 (when Paragraph 175 was completely annulled.) Unlike the other countries the Germans, from 1933 to 1945, arrested an estimated 100,000 homosexuals and officially charged 50,000. Around 15,000 of those charged were sent to concentration camps where 60% of them died (the rest went to regular prisons.) After the Allied victory the Germans (in East and West Germany) continued to treat gays as criminals. A gay man arrested and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis would be re-arrested and sent to a regular German jail. It took until 1994 for the re-united (4 years earlier) to completely make homosexuality legal. Then they couldn't have civil unions until 2001 and are still waiting on full equality with marriage. The Germans are different in how they treated gays because they killed people for being homosexuals and rather than atone for their horrendous mistakes after the war (like they tried to do with the Jews and others) they continued their persecution (minus the murder) for the next 5 decades. The only way Germany can truly atone for its rule in the murder and discrimination of homosexuals is to make gay marriage legal and remove the last step towards full civil rights. ^

http://www.dw.de/a-look-at-the-state-of-same-sex-partnerships-under-german-law/a-18478714