German lawmakers vote to legalize same-sex marriage; Merkel votes no

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

German lawmakers voted by a wide margin to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, a landmark decision which came just days after Chancellor Angela Merkel dropped her longstanding opposition to a free vote on the issue.

The bill gives homosexual couples in Germany the same rights as heterosexual couples, and will allow same-sex couples to marry and jointly adopt children. It passed by 393 votes to 226, with four abstentions.

The bill is likely to pass through the Bundesrat -- Germany's upper house -- next week. The Bundesrat has previously approved legalizing same-sex marriage.

...snip...

Speaking after the vote, Merkel said she had voted no on the issue, but that it had been important to put it to a vote of conscience.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/30/europe/germany-gay-marriage-vote/index.html

[MADem]

1. Ahhh, that Russian-East German influence. Old habits die hard.

She's never going to be bold on those sorts of issues; what she is, is a triangulator. She brings the nation along eventually, but she's not yanking them down the road.

There's something to be said for that style of leadership (particularly when the alternative is something Trumpian) even though it isn't forward-leaning, as many would like. The result, at the end of the day, is the same, even as she preserves her "personal" logic about the topic, which she ascribes to her religiosity:
https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21724411-secret-power-inoffensiveness-what-angela-merkels-shift-gay-marriage-reveals-about-her
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....The first is not to outrun public opinion. Even Mrs Merkel’s riskiest policies—her decisions to switch off Germany’s nuclear power stations in 2011 and to let in refugees in 2015—responded to changes in public attitudes. Likewise, the chancellor firmly ruled out gay marriage when most Germans were opposed, but the latest YouGov poll puts support for it at 66% (and for gay adoption at 57%). Her change of mind realigns her with the public mood.

Second: be strategically inoffensive. Mrs Merkel wins elections not just by making people like her, but also by reducing the number of people who dislike her. She makes herself so tolerable to supporters of other parties that they stay at home on election day. At the SPD’s pre-election conference in Dortmund on June 25th, a frustrated Martin Schulz, her rival for the chancellorship, lambasted this technique of “asymmetric demobilisation” as an attack on democracy. Mrs Merkel’s new position on marriage, not stark enough to force either supporters or detractors to the polls, exemplifies his complaint.

This points to the third rule: triangulate deftly, and rapidly when events demand it. In recent weeks the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats confirmed that they would join no post-election coalition opposed to same-sex marriage. Then in Dortmund Mr Schulz made it an SPD red line. The issue threatened to overshadow Mrs Merkel’s manifesto launch on July 3rd and split the CDU’s liberal wing from its conservatives (including those tempted by the right-wing Alternative for Germany party). So she tested out the “question of conscience” line within party circles and was ready to use it when the question was put at the Brigitte event.
Contained within these rules are the cases for and against Mrs Merkel. To her fans she is an exemplary democrat, constantly calibrating and recalibrating according to the will of the people. To her critics she merely follows public opinion and is too hyper-cautious to shape it. Mrs Merkel’s shift on gay marriage is a welcome illustration of her strengths. That it comes so late reminds voters of her limitations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wouldn't be surprised if she enjoys a full "I was silly to object" epiphany in a year's time or so.

[OnDoutside]

2. The positive side of it is that you being people with you, unlike say the US, where everything is

polarised.

[DetlefK]

5. That's because in Germany, no party has any chance of winning 51% of the vote.

There are 6 major parties:
CDU (moderate Conservatives) ~40%
SPD (Social-Democrats) ~25%
Greens (environmentalist Liberals) ~5-10%
FDP (capitalist Liberals) ~5-10%
Left (Socialists) ~5-10%
AfD (far-right Conservatives) ~5-10%

A party winning 50%+ is so rare, it's almost unheard of.
If your party cannot get 51%, you have to form a coalition with another party to form a power-bloc in parliament.
And as you never know whom you might have to ask for a coalition later on, it's an EXTREMELY BAD IDEA to piss off political opponents too badly.

For example:
The Conservatives of Merkel's CDU and the Social-Democrats of the SPD are natural enemies, because they are the two biggest parties. They used to really go at each other.
But since a few years the small parties have become stronger and it gets really difficult to get past 51% with a coalition of just two parties. (Three-party-coalitions are a really bad idea, because they are inherently less stable.) So, the CDU and the SPD have been forced to form a coalition in several cases, despite being bitter rivals.

[OnDoutside]

6. Yes and it has done extremely well over the last 70 years, surviving the

re-unification with East Germany.

[DetlefK]

3. The US had "No-Drama"-Obama. Germany has "No-Drama"-Merkel.

A boring, heady, stiff head-of-state. Tries to keep it middle-of-the-road. Tries to keep it bipartisan. Somebody who keeps calm and gets shit done.
A person that reassures you: "It's okay to not think about politics for a while."



And there definitely is an east-german influence to her. In communist East-Germany, you relied way more on help from your neighbors. Society was way more tight-knit and stuff like having friends, knowing the right guy, dealing and receiving favors, that was basically essential for day-to-day-business.

Something similar was valid for east-german politics. There was no democracy, so it was internal power-struggles of those in power who decided political careers. Here it also paid to not stretch your neck out, or you might get your head cut off (metaphorically). Hence a political system that consisted of a few fiery leaders and huge masses of mindless followers. Merkel was a mindless follower.

[David__77]

7. I find it far more likely to be a religious influence.

The Left Party - the principal expression of "East German influence" in today's Germany - is good on gay issues. The German ruling party was quite different ideologically from the Soviet ruling party.

[Honeycombe8]

4. Good. It got done, and she saved her standing w/her political base.

This is how politics is done. The majority ruled, and she's fine w/that.