Germany’s late but welcome turn on gay marriage

Merkel’s decision to allow same sex marriage is a calculated political move ahead of the election. 

For several years, Germany has seemed like a strange anomaly in Western Europe on one of the key cultural issues of the modern era. 

As country after country passed gay marriage in Europe and the Americas, Germany held out. 

On the gay marriage map of Europe, a wave of dark blue came rushing in from the West. Starting with The Netherlands and Belgium in 2001, countries adopted full gay marriage. 

The most surprising development came in 2015, when the Irish voted in a referendum to allow gay marriage - the first country to do so by public vote. Long known as a conservative country dominated by the Catholic church, it was a chance for the country to demonstrate just how much it has changed over the past three decades. 

But meanwhile in central Europe, everything remained frozen.

Violence erupts at French anti-gay-marriage protests

Across Europe and the Americas, gay marriage has been enacted peacefully and with minimal protest. Meanwhile, in France...

Yesterday, an estimated one million people flooded the streets of Paris to protest plans to enact same-sex marriage in France. It was the second such massive demonstration, following one held in January against French President Francois Hollande’s effort to enact gay marriage - a fulfilment of a promise made during last year’s presidential campaign.

This time, the demonstration took a nasty turn. The protestors became violent. The police resorted to using tear gas, which allegedly injured some of the many children being used in the protest. The police counter that the anti-gay-marriage protestors were using children as human shields. The president of France's Christian Democrat party says she was injured by police during the protest. Today, the opposition UMP party of Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for the resignation of the Paris chief of police and French interior minister Manuel Valls in response to the tear gas 'used against children'.

UK rejects ‘separate but equal’ marriage

The British House of Commons has just concluded a historic vote, voting 400 to 175 to adopt gay marriage in England. But despite its historic nature, the legislation will prove to be of more symbolic than practical importance – particularly for its author, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

In effect, the UK has already had gay marriage for eight years – but by another name. The Civil Unions signed into UK law in 2004 confer the exact same rights as a marriage – to the letter. Interestingly, as I’ve written about before, this made the gay marriage debate fade out of the limelight for many years in the UK. Because the civil unions were theoretically “equal”, gay rights activists weren’t really pushing too hard to have the word changed to ‘marriage’.

That was until an unlikely hero came along – David Cameron, leader of the British Conservative party. Cameron made it the central mission of his leadership to “detoxify” the conservative brand in the UK after years of being successfully cast as the “nasty Tories” by Tony Blair. Part of his effort to modernise the party was an campaign pledge in 2010 to enact gay marriage if elected. The response from gay UK was, “well, alright then I guess.”

Malta says 'I do' to divorce

By a slim majority, the Maltese voted to legalise divorce in a referendum held Saturday in the tiny Mediterranean island nation. 52.6% of people voted 'yes' to make it legal to divorce your spouse, and the conservative prime minister, who campaigned for a 'no' vote, conceded that he will respect the will of the people and change the law. Malta is the only EU country in which divorce is illegal.

The referendum's result is being heralded as much more than a change in the country's marriage law. For many inside and outside of Malta the vote signals that the island, which for hundreds of years was run by a Catholic religious order with origins in the crusades, is ready to shed its identity as a 'Catholic state'. Apart from the Phillipines, the only other country in the world where divorce is illegal is Vatican City.

The country's Labour opposition leader called the vote, "the birth of a new Malta." The Malta Star wrote on Sunday, "The people haven’t just voted ‘Yes’ to divorce, they have signalled they are happy to embrace the modern age. The new Malta isn’t condemning and stifling, it is relaxed and open.” Saviour Balzan of Malta Today told the Associated Press that the vote will bring Malta closer to Europe culturally. "This is a conservative society, but Maltese still live like Europeans," he said. "This regularizes their lives."

A royal weekend of symbolism

Wow, what a weekend – a royal wedding, beatification of a saint and now a martyrdom. What century are we living in again?

Last night's news that after a decade of efforts the United States has at long last killed Osama Bin Laden is just about the only news story people are talking about today. This is to be expected for such a symbolically important event – regardless of its actual real-world impact. The news finished off a weekend when the US was paying more attention than normal to events going on abroad, with the royal wedding in London and the huge mass in Rome that declared Pope John Paul II ready to be a saint. All three of these events were short on real-world impact but high on symbolic value.

Ireland gets civil unions: now only Italy is left

     Same-sex Marriage      Same-sex Civil Unions      Issue under political consideration      Unrecognized      Constitutional ban on gay marriage

This week the final signature was put on Ireland's civil partnership bill for gay and lesbian couples. For a fervently Catholic country that only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, this was a big step. But even more importantly, it's reflective of the sudden rapid advancement Europe is making in the area of gay rights. Well, half of Europe anyway. Yes, the fact that this advance was made despite the historic power of Catholicism over Irish government is a promising sign for proponants of same-sex marriage. But could Ireland's change of heart have more to do with geography than a cultural shift? Let's look at the map.

As you can see from the map above, Italy is now the only remaining Western European country to have no form of gay marriage. The vast swathe of what Donald Rumsfeld used to deride as "Old Europe" is now awash in various shades of blue. And some of those light blues are due to change to dark blue quite soon. David Cameron's conservative-libdem coalition has already said they will upgrade Britain's civil unions to full marriage soon. Anything to not be compared to the Irish I suppose.

Le divorce

Think you’re having a bad day? France’s new president Nicolas Sarkozy is having probably the worst week of his life, dealing concurrently with a massive public transit strike and a divorce. It looks like the end of his marriage has come at the same time as the end of his honeymoon period as president.

The presidential palace announced yesterday that Cécilia Sarkozy and Nicolas have divorced “by mutual consent” At the same time, Sarkozy is dealing with the first major challenge to his attempts to shake up the French social and economic system.

France has ground to a virtual standstill as public sector workers, mainly in transport and electricity, stage a massive strike over a proposed change to their special pension rights. Yesterday’s concurrent strike and divorce announcement is being called "Black Thursday" in France, and will probably come to be known as the day that Sarkozy lost control of the positive news agenda that he’s had since he became president five months ago. Sarkozy’s whole schtick has been his “ironman” persona, a strong, determined and energetic leader that is determined to strong-arm the changes that France desperately needs. But the collapse of his marriage so soon into his presidency, as well as speculation that the marriage actually ended before the election but Sarkozy has been keeping it a secret, will surely make him lose respect with the public.