Germany is one of currently 28, soon 27, countries with veto-rights about new members. All that’s being said is that the official German position is moving towards deciding that according to the principles used for assessing new members, Turkey is moving backwards and the talks are therefore becoming so useless as…

There’s also the left party who is set to get between 5 and 10% of the vote.

Interesting point: The man in the picture is Volker Beck, who is gay himself, and fought for this law for years. Today was the last day of this legislative period, and he will not stand for reelection, so it was his last day as a member of parliament.

Since the second chamber has actually put forward legislation for marriage equality and so far been blocked by the first chamber, the passing of the law is now only a formality.

There’s been civil unions since 2001, the supreme court gave those almost all rights besides adoption and the name “marriage”, and everyone is so used that probably half the country didn’t even know it wasn’t legal. General approval in the population is at about 80 to 85% for it.

Left-leaning people have lots of other choices to vote the next election. As much as Merkel is seen as a liberal in America, she is the leader of the German conseervative party - back when I was in school (before Bush), her party was even compared to the Republicans in America. She’s been under attack from her own…