Bundestag dispenses with rainbow flag: a fatal mistake!

While queer people on German roads not only fight for visibility, but have long been fighting for security, the Bundestag is hiding behind a sloping neutrality.

The decision not to be able to exclude the rainbow flag on parliament and to exclude the queer network of the Bundestag administration from the Berlin CSD sends a fatal signal-not only to the LGBTQ community, but to everyone who wants a defensive democracy.

Where did the German values ​​go? Freedom, protection against discrimination and equality of all people are firmly anchored in the Basic Law. Values ​​that have to be publicly defended in times of rising right -wing attacks and ideas. Instead, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner ducks away.

The justification of the Bundestag is as confused as wrong: “Due to the offered neutrality”, one does not want to participate in demonstrations. Only: Christopher Street Day is not a political demonstration in the narrower sense, but a festival and commemoration day, on which lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and generally queer people demonstrate against discrimination and exclusion and celebrate their already fought rights.

The meaning is to make it visible that sexual and gender diversity is a natural part of society and to set a sign against intolerance, homo and transthobia. The actual question that Klöckner has to put up with is: How can you be neutral towards human rights?

In addition, the time could hardly be chosen. In times when Queere Events and CSDs are so strongly threatened by violence and right-wing extremist attacks that the Amadeu Antonio Foundation warns of a return of the “Baseballschläger years of the 1990s”.

Only on Sunday hooded men in Bad Freienwalde in the east of Brandenburg violently attacked a rally against hate and agitation, in which many participants came from the queer community.

The Bundestag administration does not behave neutral if it prohibits employees to participate in the CSD as a Bundestag employee. On the contrary: it sends the signal that she kinks in front of right tendencies.

Even German companies prefer to adapt to the new political major weather situation in the USA. Rainbow colors on logos in Pride Month in June are in vain at companies such as SAP and Lufthansa. Financial support also breaks away: Organizers in Berlin, Cologne and Munich are unanimous to a break -in of donations. In Berlin, 200,000 euros are missing for this year’s CSD.

All of this would speak for a clear attitude of the Bundestag. Instead of following the US politics that drift to the right or swinging the Swiss neutrality club, the German federal government should show more flag than ever. It is not neutral what Klöckner does. It is a retreat. And that comes to the wrong time.

This text first appeared at NTV.de, which, like the star, is part of RTL Germany.