"Gay, and that's a good thing":
Berlin's Lord Mayor Klaus Wowereit at Christopher
Street Celebration, 2001
(Source: wiki)

WHILE NEW YORK WAS legalizing gay marriage, the city and federal state of Berlin were finalizing plans to teach “sexual diversity” in the municipal primary schools. The new curriculum, recently approved by Berlin’s education department, will introduce full information on homosexuality in the already existing sex education classes, which are begun here in fourth grade.  However, tolerance for “the normality of being different, acceptance, gender roles” will be taught from the beginning of a child’s education, at an age before such things become “a subject for giggles.”

According to the education department, “children are to learn social competency, empathy, and sensitivity” to homosexuality, transsexuality, gay partnerships, and alternative lifestyle choices involving sexuality. In the words of Ammo Recla from the gay organization “ABqueer,”  “[I]t  makes sense to prepare children for a life in diversity early on. There are other family forms aside from Papa-Mama-child-golden retriever.” The education department is currently preparing a special “suitcase” full of educational materials for teachers. It includes twenty-five picture books, a “concentration” game and an audio CD with an accompanying book.

Berlin’s city parliament already approved a corresponding educational reform measure back in April 2009. Such a step might still be considered extreme in some parts of Germany, let alone in other European nations. After all, while “registered life partnerships” were recently legalized throughout the Federal Republic, gay “marriage” as it is understood in places like Iowa and New York is still impossible anywhere in Germany, and life as a gay person in small provincial towns is the closest thing to hell on earth on this side of Riyadh, from what I’ve been told.

However, in swinging gay and godless Berlin people are more likely to wonder what took the education department so long? After all, Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, famously defused a potentially embarrassing moment when discussing his candidacy at a Social Democratic party conference in 2001 when he responded to the controversy over his open homosexuality by saying: “I’m gay and that’s a good thing.” Berlin has been Germany’s gay capital for decades, and Christopher Street Day attracts hundreds of thousands – not all of them gay, I might add. Against this background, the educational reform merely appears to be a long-overdue case of catch-up. In any case, discrimination on the basis of one’s sexual orientation has been illegal on the basis of the national anti-discrimination law for many years now. 

But is it all as easy as that? Can homophobia be eliminated from this city using a “suitcase”? As journalist Malte Lehming recently pointed out, “it is often a different matter talking about homosexuality with white (post-) Christian, enlightened middle class kids in [the wealthy suburb of] Zehlendorf than with Christian-Orthodox Russian or Muslim-Turkish immigrant children from Neukölln.” 

In fact, according to a survey of 1,000 teenagers that was undertaken in 2007, two thirds of Turkish kids and half of Russian kids living in Berlin expressed homophobic sentiments, as opposed to “just” twenty-six percent of ethnic German teenagers, who have in any case become a minority in their own city. “Faggot” is one of the most injurious insults heard on playgrounds, rivaled only by “Jew” and the curious catch-all “victim.” Considering that the teachers will be facing opposition not only from the kids’ conservative ethnic parents but also from the immigrant community as a whole, they may need more than just a suitcase and a “concentration” game to get the job done. In some cases, a police escort might be a good idea. 

 
"I cannot tolerate this dirty life!"
Nigerian soccer coach Eucharia Uche
(source: supersport.com)

Lehming might also have added that anti-gay discrimination is a much bigger problem elsewhere than in relatively liberal Berlin. This became evident once more in the runup to the Women's Soccer World Cup, which is being held in Berlin and other Germany cities this summer. In an interview with the New York Times,  Nigerian coach Eucharia Uche told journalists that "Yes, the lesbians in our teach were really a big problem. But since I'm coach of the Super Falcons, that has been cleared up. There are no more lesbian players on my team. I cannot tolerate this dirty life." Please, someone send that woman a suitcase!

So what to make of the new curriculum? Since my kids have been out of the public schools for a couple of years now, I can’t pretend to have a dog in this race. My own spontaneous reaction is that “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” In other words, I have the feeling that tolerance for “alternative lifestyles” should be the default position and should be regarded as common sense rather than something that has to be specially taught in schools. 

But this is admittedly a naïve position. Some things do indeed have to be carefully taught: not just discrimination itself (remembering the famous song in South Pacific), but also traffic rules, let alone the pooper-picker-upper law on dog shit and the ban on smoking in most bars and restaurants. These too were seen as extreme measures not so many years ago. Today, it’s hard to imagine a time when people even thought to behave without common courtesy for their fellow human beings. 

And that, as mayor Wowereit would say, “is a good thing.”