Tag: gay germany

German court declines to rule on joint adoption by gay couples

Germany’s highest court has refused to rule on allowing same-sex couples in civil partnerships the right to adopt children. On Friday, the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany, dismissed on procedural grounds a request from a Berlin district court to rule on the matter. Deutsche Welle reports the case was introduced by a gay couple… Read more »

Germany’s top court rules gay couples are banned from joint adoption

Despite the Constitutional Court ruling last year that gay couples could adopt together on a technicality, they have thrown out a referral asking them to rule on joint same-sex adoptions Germany’s top court has ruled gay couples are banned from joint adoption today (21 February), despite being allowed to on a technicality. The Constitutional Court… Read more »

Germany’s openly gay foreign minister loses seat and job

Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s first openly gay Foreign Minister, has failed to retain his seat in parliament, forcing him out of that role German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has lost that job after his party failed to gain enough of the vote to retain his seat in parliament. Westerwelle’s Free Democratic Party only received 4.8% of… Read more »

German court grants gay unions marriage tax breaks

Berlin(AP) – Gay rights campaigners won a victory over the German government Thursday as the country’s top court ruled that homosexual couples in civil unions should receive the same tax benefits as heterosexual married couples. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that treating the two forms of partnership differently for tax purposes violates the… Read more »

Poll: Gay men take twice as many holidays

A new poll suggested gay men take double the national average number of holidays each year. Ipsos Mori polled 2,174 gay men for Gaydar and has released both the pattern for gay holidays and the most popular destinations. San Francisco was the most popular city, followed by Amsterdam. The resort of Gran Canaria came third… Read more »

German court tells lesbian asylum seeker to hide identity in Iran

A German court rejected the asylum application of Samira Ghorbani Danesh, an Iranian lesbian refugee who fled Iran in 2009, with the justification that she can hide her homosexuality in Iran and avoid criminal penalties. In a telephone interview on Thursday with PinkNews.co.uk, Katayun Pirdawari, who is a German-Iranian and a member of the Lesbian… Read more »

Last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust dies

The last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust has passed away in Berlin, just days before he was due to celebrate his 89th birthday, the Jerusalem Post reports. Gad Beck was an Zionist resistance fighter during the Second World War, and, in post-war Germany, a bold campaigner for gay rights when homosexuality was still… Read more »

Mr Gay World 2012 won by German man

The fourth Mr Gay World contest took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday. This was the first time that the contest included black African participants, whose involvement brought its own fraught set of problems. The title was taken by Andreas Derleth, a German man who lives in New Zealand and who beat 21 other contestants.… Read more »