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Compiled by GayToday
 Ich Bin
Schwul: Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit came out in a June 16 speech at the Social Democratic Party's convention |
The man elected mayor and governor of Berlin on June
16 came out as gay on June 10. Berlin is both a city
and a state.
Klaus Wowereit, 47, made the announcement during his
candidate's speech at the Social Democratic Party's
convention.
"I'm gay and that's a good thing," he said. ("Ich bin
schwul, und das ist auch gut so.") He received lengthy
applause.
City lawmakers elected Wowereit by a vote of 89 to 78. |
One commentator, writing in the newspaper ^Frankfurter
Allgemeine, said that since Parisians have a gay
mayor, obviously Berliners wanted one too. Eighty-four
percent of Germans told pollsters last week they have
no problem with the idea of a gay mayor in Berlin.
Paris elected openly gay Socialist Bertrand Delanoe,
50, on March 18.
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"The most remarkable thing about it may well have been
that it was not remarkable at all," said political
scientist Michael Dreyer, a German correspondent for
this column. "In the week between the candidate's
coming out and today's parliamentary election, some
media have mentioned his coming out in a
matter-of-fact way, but virtually the only comments
and editorials I saw just mentioned it in passing and
then generally favorably, as a welcome openness.
"Not one of the conservative politicians who are now
replaced has made an unfriendly remark or comment in
that regard," Beyer added. "Any such remark would have
been quite out of place in the German political
culture anyway -- you don't comment on your fellow
politicians' private lives."
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Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Paris Elects its First Openly-Gay Mayor
Paris: Transgender Woman Elected to City Council
Election Report: Victory Fund's Gay & Lesbian Candidates
Related Sites:
Klaus Wowereit
Rex Wockner International Report
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