June 30, 2017 was a special day: for Beppo Brem, Marion Lüttig, Thomas Niederbühl, Micky Wenngatz and many other people. On that day, the Bundestag resolution on marriage meant that everyone could finally marry their partner. Brem, Lüttig, Niederbühl and Wenngatz all sit on the Munich city council, they are four of at least eight city councilors who belong to the LBGTIQ community. The queer quota in the local political body is thus significantly higher than in the Bundestag, for example.
This was also the reason why we met. We talked for more than an hour in the town hall: about what marriage has changed for everyone (SZ Plus). About the things that still need to be done despite all the progress in queer politics. About how the success of their own movement and the struggles also leads to problems – everyone reported in the interview that they are now hearing more and more often: “What else do you want?” Thomas Niederbühl talks about the reactions when he entered the city council for the first time in 1996 for the Rosa List – a voters’ initiative founded specifically to represent the interests of the queer community. Today, says Niederbühl, he would probably look for a party; because they have become much more open to these topics in recent years.
My favorite part of the interview is when Niederbühl and Lüttig talk about how they used to rail against marriage. Lüttig for feminist reasons: “Back then I would have said: Hello?! We want to abolish marriage.” And Niederbühl: “If someone had told me in 1996 that we were fighting for marriage – I would have said: Are you crazy? This bourgeois institute of the 19th century, we didn’t want that at all.” Well, today they’re all married.
THE DAY IN MUNICH
Free State pays millions in rent for luxury offices Minister of the Interior Herrmann has apparently pushed through a second location for his authority at a price that is classified as close to the pain threshold even internally. There would have been a much cheaper alternative – but you didn’t want that (SZ Plus).
A bit of class warfare: residents are fighting back against gentrification Giesinger reject the planned Candid-Tor – because the building does not fit into the district, whose “value system is not yet exclusively based on money”.
Munich triples vaccination capacities According to a specification from the Free State, the city must be able to supply more than 11,500 people per week in the future. Because the center in the Gasteig is to be expanded for this purpose, an interim use of the Philharmonie should have been completed.
President of the Music Academy surprisingly voted out He wanted to reorganize the institution, which had been ailing after the scandal surrounding ex-President Siegfried Mauser. But now Bernd Redmann has not been re-elected. A woman is to succeed him.
Cashier puts armed robbers to flight The woman pushes the perpetrator’s pistol away and tries to hold him down when the man demands money in the supermarket.
Dog chasing geese: cyclist crashes The 56-year-old tried to avoid the startled birds and fell on his bike. He suffered serious injuries.
Leak in the pipe: Hot water flows into office building Several basement floors of the building are flooded. All the elevator shafts are full. The emergency services are busy for hours.
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