Ministerial ministries are demonstrating a noticeable lack of unity regarding plans for raising the Rainbow Flag this year. According to an inquiry from the “Tagesspiegel”, many ministries have different intentions for various key dates.
On May 17, the International Day against Homo-, Bi-, Inter-, and Transphobia, nine ministries have planned to hoist the flag: the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Research, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Development, and the Ministry of Finance.
For this year’s Berlin Christopher Street Day (CSD) on July 25, the Ministries of Family and Defense plan to raise the flag, a practice also planned by the Federal Council. However, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Transport have announced that they will not be hoisting the flag this year, and the Federal Chancellery has completely cancelled the activity. While the Ministry of Digital Affairs noted that plans are still being finalized, the Ministry for Economic Affairs intends to raise the flag on May 19. The Ministry of Agriculture did not respond to the inquiry.
Furthermore, some ministries are defining the guidelines set by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in their own way. For example, the Ministry of Social Affairs is leaving open whether it must adhere to the requirement of raising the flag only on a single day, while the Ministry of Defence plans to raise the flag within its own premises on CSD day, and again on July 3 for a specific military memorial day.
The Green Party strongly criticized this fragmented approach. Nyke Slawik, the Green Party’s queer political speaker, told the “Tagesspiegel” that this indecision and lack of backbone were not only “mortifying but extremely dangerous”. Slawik criticized the federal government for “pouring oil on the fire through reluctance and indecision” noting that crime statistics show attacks against queer individuals have increased nearly tenfold in recent years.
Contextually, May 17 is observed as the International Day of Action against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersex and Transphobia (IDAHOBITA). The date was chosen to commemorate May 17, 1990, when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its diagnostic manual. The date also recalls paragraph 175 of the German criminal code, which previously criminalized sexual acts between males. Between 1935 and 1944, approximately 50,000 convictions were issued under the paragraph, and around 15,000 homosexual people were imprisoned in concentration camps. While homosexual acts were no longer prosecuted criminally in East Germany starting in the late 1950s, the paragraph remained strictly enforced in West Germany until 1969. Only with reunification was the now-weakened paragraph fully abolished for West Germany.
The Christopher Street Day commemorates the revolt against a violent police raid that took place at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City. While pioneers like Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld had been active against the criminalization of queer people since the 19th century, the Stonewall Uprising is considered the starting point of the modern protest wave for the equality of lesbian, gay, bi, and asexual as well as trans and intersex individuals.
