Last Saturday and Sunday, from mid-morning till 11pm (that is 11pm, on the dot, this is Germany), an area the size of about 6 suburban blocks was given over to Berlin's annual Lesbian and Gay Festival. The city parade ending at Winged Victory is this coming Saturday, as a wave of gay pride events sweep across Europe, slowing as they move further east, last year's Budapest parade exposing prejudice, ignorance and fear as police sided with right wingers who took to the 'outs' with verbal and physical abuse.
But this is Berlin, this is Schöneberg; think Isherwood. This was as comfortable and mature an example of integration as either of us have ever seen, where sexual preference was both so overt and so completely irrelevant that the theme of 'Equal Rights for the Unequal' was the only clue that discrimination existed here at all.
1 comment:
All the more reason for me to move to Germany! :o) We have pride parade here in San Diego, too, though it always draw some negative coverage and there has to always be police presence to keep things peaceful.
Thanks for good glimpses of what's happening elsewhere (as usual), matie!
Cheerio,
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