Angela Merkel revealed on Tuesday that while she thinks same-sex couples should be entitled to marital benefits, they should not themselves be allowed to marry.
The German Chancellor said that although she favoured measures to curb discrimination against same-sex couples, and that the case of LGBTQ+ rights had been advanced greatly, she did not think that marriage licenses should be offered to homosexual couples.
“I’m someone who is very supportive of us eliminating all discrimination,” she told German YouTube star Florian Mundt, alias LeFloid.
“We have come a long way; when I remember, 25 years ago, many people didn’t dare to say that they are gay or lesbian.
“Luckily we overcame this; you can enter a partnership, a civil partnership.”
“For me, personally, marriage is a man and a woman living together. That is my concept, but I support civil partnerships.
“I support us not discriminating against them when it comes to taxes, and to remove any other discrimination wherever we may find it.”
Explaining, Merkel said: “I don’t want discrimination and [I want] equality, but I make a difference at some point.”
Mundt quickly rebutted: “So you could say: no to discrimination, but we’ll keep differentiating between the two.”
“No discrimination,” Merkel replied.
“Marriage as a man and a woman living together.”
A spokesman for Stonewall, a UK LGBT charity, responded to the comments, saying: “Can someone really support ‘eliminating all discrimination’ if they believe that same-sex unions shouldn’t be labelled as ‘marriages’? It must be a quiet week for Angela if her current concern is synonyms.”
The German Chancellor’s remark came after a bitter negotiation with the Greek government over the country’s future in the Eurozone.