#and he wons by convincing the oponent that this is the case

[just-an-enby-lemon]

My fannon Joker-Riddler dinamic is that they work as foils in the sense that Joker only pretends to have no control over his mental faculties while Edward only pretends to have control over his.

[kendrixtermina]

The German Marriage Equality Decision: A Political Perspective/ Context

The Decision itself was simply a matter of time, given that most of the population simply agrees with it,  

It is important to understand that this is not a shift from 0% to 100% but more from 98% to 100% -  There have been civil unions for years and over the years those civil unions have been made made closer and closer to equal in terms of civil & financial privileges. 

None of this is any excuse, of course, calling it something else is still invalidating & going to sting people who struggled with being mocked all their lives; The one major thing missing rights wise was the joint adoption specifically - You could totally adopt, you could do a stepchild adoption if your partner had a kid from a previous marriage or even a previous adoption (I think this was eventually justified with) but you couldn’t do an adoption where you’re both the legal parents right away. 

So then the real question would be, why did it take so long to do it all the way? Well, enter the bothersome intricacies of local politics. 

While Germany as a whole has been steadily moving toward social progress, some of it has been slow for a variety of reasons, including perhaps cultural ones & things being more inert & less dynamic in Europe. 

Another is impetus: The situation in the US was pretty bad with mounting polarization & extreme conservatives - if everythings not quite satisfactory but you could still technically create the life you want, there’s less of a strong drive to change. Though we have hardline conservatives here, too, and some of them have way to much power (a lot of the big industrialists are seated in the traditionally conservative Bavaria)  the situation isn’t nearly as extreme as in the US as we don’t have as many fire & brimstone preachers & religion is generally more moderate. 

Then, there’s the factor that for the past 10+ years, the reigning party has pretty much been the CDU. 

The CDU base consists of suburban moms who want benefits for big families, & wealthy conservative old men - and so they’re always sort of beholden to them especiallly with a new rightwing populist party on the blog - for over 70 years the shock from WWII has pretty much eradicated; “right wing” is considered an insult/ pretty much equivalent with “nazi” - no non-nazi but still strongly conservative party has really taken off though some have tried. 

(Comparably, my parents have consistently voted for them because after growing up in a communist country they won’t touch anything that’s “left”, even i it’s as watered down & mainstream friendly as the SPD or as different in origin as the green party. Though my father would probably vote for something like the US republican party if it existed here. )

The closest thing that exists is the centrist or perhaps sorta neoliberal CDU.  Sure they’re corporate, there’s been some bushesque security/ surveilance paranoia following terrorists attacks and I’m not voting for em in September but  they’re generally sane & do modernize when the people’s opinion does - and that’s how they stayed in power: The people want clean energy? Come on in clean energy. The people want to let the refugees in? Come on in refugees. Which can rightfully be seen as sort of self-interested but then again, changing your position instead of stubbonly insisting on it and also, they work for US: They’re our representatives - if they do what we want it means the system is working. 

Yeah that ‘C’ stands for ‘Christian’ but that’s one of the cases where theory & practive differ - They’ve put at least one muslim MP in the parliament & once formed a coalition put a protestant woman & a gay dude in the highest offices. 

Until the rightwing populist AfD showed up they were pretty much the most conservative party on the block but they’re not at all comparableto USA conservatives. (Not because the CDU is so great but because the republicans are so horrible... but that’s First-Past-The-Post for you. ) - But the thing is the CDU has taken some less conservative positions over the years (ie, let in the refugees), and the conservative voters had nowhere else to got except some tiny parties that had zero influence & far too many far-right asshats in them. Now there’s the AfD... that IS far-rights asshats but markes themselves better than the average ones/ try hard to convince stupid people that they aren’t. 

Now come the 2017 election - Last time, smaller parties made big gains in both federal & local elections but now with the Trump situation and frequent terror attacks everyone is worried and afraid, & the polls so far show a huge preference for the big parties, even more so  now that the AFD is loosing its steam in the polls. 

The SPD took that to mean that they could win, but thing is they haven’t mounted a decent candidate in years, ever since... Merkel’s predecessor, actually. There’s lots of good & bad to say about him but damn he was brave. Similarly, whatever you think about Merkel’s party, she’s a level-headed person with nerves of steel, far less actionistic than the average politician. Not the worst person to have in charge while you sit out the trump debacle.

 I daresay a lot people like merkel more than they like Merkel’s party...whereas the SPD may have the better programs in some respects but they’re too damn wishy-washie, don’t differenntiate themselves enough (eg. playing ball on corporate issues like trade deals & arms deals)  and the same is true for the no-name, no-carisma toads they keep putting up. The current leader, Gabriel, is an unpopular toad n one likes, the beloved competent people such as Steinmeier don’t want to be chancellor, so they keep pulling these unknown dudes out of nowhere & expect them to beat Merkel. 

The current one, Schultz is better than most in that h’s experienced in international politics which is what we need now but apart from some initial hype, he didn’t really do much - The CDU won several local elections as if nothing happened, poll numbers slipped back to status quo, basically he realized he wasn’t gonna win... 

That’s when he chose to make a big deal about the gay marriage thing & promise loudly to fix that if he wins, trying to make it about an ethical issue in line with the current global political climate. Lots of people would go “WEll I don’t like him but I can’t not support gay marriage” - Heck I considered it after being too dissatisfied with the SPD and intending to vote green or pirate, but to be honest, I pretty much called the current developement: That Merkel would push for a vote before the election, again, perfectly in line with her history of decisions. 

In that sense Schultz�� gamble paid off (and I’m going to call it a gamble because that’s what it was - still, if it has good results & forces progress I won’t be complaining) in that it would have given the slow grind of process a push either way: Either if he won or because the government would be forced to adress the issue before it becomes subject to the election. 

As for Merkel herself, she stayed with party lines & voted no, but was the one who forced the vote past her more conservative peers and she must have known how it would turn out - Even when explaining it, she gave a wishy-wahy, consider-all-sides-piss-no-one-off anwer like, “I was wrong in 2003 & unsatisfied even them, of course they should get to adopt, but [conservative platitude about how the constitution defines marriage]” In the end a lot of this is about power politics. 

Some of her peers CDU folks DID break with party lines so it’s possible that she really thinks this, or she may think the opposite & this was lip-service to the conservatives, or she may not care; Perhaps she did it to wash her hands of whatever happens, which will look bad in the history books, but in some sense it doesn’t matter what she thinks as long as she understands that being a leader means that it matters less than what the people think & what most of the federal parlament things.

It’s also worth considering that a lot of those politicians are old but hold “fair for its day, but presently outdated/insensitive” opinions - see also the whole burqa thing & may geneuinely not get why it matters that its called the same thing... though it would frankly be their job to keep up with public discussions. 

So what will happen next? Well, a lot of adoptions I suppose, or people having their partner written in as the other legal parent. 

Also, Schultz has nothing more to promise the people or to make himself look better than his oponent - still if he hadn’t forced the issue it may have taken another four years so even if he doesn’t become chancellor he did accomplish something. Merkel’s opponents won’t forget the no vote but since everyone got their adoption rights anyways grass will have grown over it by september.

Like, failing further desasters I’m saying Merkel is still winning. Granted, the leadership situation is far less dire with Macron around, but there’s just not much will for political change right now. We’re gonna get an SPD chancellor when Merkel decides to call it quits & retire. 

Still, even if he’s not becomming chancellor, he’ll go down in history as the guy who accomplished this so there’s that. Chances are history will only see the hard finish line not the process, but, equality means equality means equality so it’s not exactly unfair.  

I for one am happy that this won’t be subject to the election because then it would have been involved in the usual rethorical mudfights, so the same-sex couples of the republic escape having their humanity publicly debated. Homophobic signs in the streets? It becoming an issue people campaign against? No thanks. I’d take a parliamentary vote or a court decision over that every day.