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Gay pride in Germany

July 14, 2009

Within Europe, Germany is regarded by many as being progressive when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, but many homosexuals say they still experience discrimination.

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Two gay pride participants dressed as a beauty queen and a sailor and holding rainbow parasols in Munich
Munich celebrated Christopher Street Day on SaturdayImage: AP

Each year in Germany, from the end of June through August, gay and lesbian rights' activists celebrate the "Stonewall" uprising - named after a gay bar on Christopher Street in New York, where homosexuals fought back against police brutality in 1969.

Participants in the German parades known as "Christopher Street Day" join other activists around the world who take to the streets to demonstrate gay pride and demand greater freedoms.

Some of those freedoms would include expanded civil rights. In Germany, civil unions, for instance, have been permitted among same-sex couples since 2001, but full marriages are not. Homosexual couples therefore do not enjoy the same rights as married heterosexual couples when it comes to taxes, retirement, civil servant benefits, or adoption law.

For more on gay and lesbian rights and the community in Germany, click on the links below, or listen to this week's "Living in Germany" program to hear a more personal account of a homosexual civil union.

Author: Louisa Schaefer

Editor: Sean Sinico