The Lutheran Church may be face fierce debate as German leaders debate electing openly gay cleric Horst Gorski as bishop. And, of course, the more conservative set are scoffing at the idea, with one saying “Many members of the community would have little understanding for a bishop with this kind of lifestyle.” Lutheran officials refuse take Gorski out of the running, saying that the church has no official stand on the gays. [Reuters]

If you’re going to vandalize a gay May Day pole, at least put some energy into it: “Spattered with grey paint were depictions of gay life in Munich’s Glockenbachviertel neighborhood, where hundreds of gay and straight residents gathered last Thursday to erect the maypole, said Conrad Breyer, spokesman for the Gay Communication and Culture Centre of Munich.” [The Local]

The European Commission didn’t even put up a fight!

Fearing opposition from conservative member states, such as Germany, the legislative body scrapped plans to draw up gay inclusive employment discrimination laws. A representative from the group’s employment arm remarked: …We need to be realistic, and we have signals from some member states that they would not support such a horizontal directive and this, of course, is a problem because we need unanimity in council to get the proposal through. Gay rights have been a big obstacle for European unity. For example, Poland’s Senate recently passed its European Union charter sans gay rights, a staple of Union membership.

The Commission will now focus … Continued…

Anti-gay singer Bounty Killer probably wants to kill some gays right about now. Like Beanie Man and Buju Banton before him, Killer’s concerts have been felled by the fagalas. From the ever-ready Peter Tatchell’s celebratory press release: Bounty Killer, has had two of his three UK concerts canceled in the last week, following a campaign by the gay human rights group OutRage!

His concerts in Bradford and Birmingham were axed, losing him thousands of pounds in performance fees.

In Germany, Bounty Killer’s performance in Essen was canceled and other German concert dates are now in doubt. The Outrage! campaign extends all over Europe, including France and Belgium.

Bounty Killer previously boasted that the gays would be no … Continued…

The $890,000 monument honoring the Nazi’s gay victims should be done within the next few months, said officials in Berlin. Then they’ll start working on a memorial for fallen Roma.

Berlin’s gay Muslim immigrants are coming out ever so slightly - and silently: European Muslims, so often portrayed one-dimensionally as rioters, honor killers or terrorists, live diverse lives, most of them trying to get by and to have a good time. That is more difficult if one is both Muslim and gay.
…
Safety and secrecy come up regularly when talking to guests, who laugh and dance, but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.

“Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I’m a foreigner and … Continued…

German opera lovers weren’t loving the gay twist director Krzysztof Warlikowski amplified in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s classic, Eugene Onegin.
Gay cowboys and drag queens doing erotic dances find their way into Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in Munich. The Polish stage director, Krzysztof Warlikowski, turns this classic romance into a gay love triangle, and was roundly booed for his efforts at the premiere.
…
Warlikowski pushes the composer’s own tormented homosexuality into the foreground and queers the pitch for his characters.

The real relationship in this production is between Lensky and Onegin. The duel scene finds them in bed together, with what looks like the cast of Brokeback Mountain lurking at the back of the stage (a motel room and … Continued…

Prison Break babe Wentworth Miller preened and posed for GQ Germany’s next issue. He may be wearing winter lines, but this kid’s steaming!
Continued…

German gays are celebrating their pride this month. What better time, then, for Deutsche Welle to remind us of some of the horrors homos once faced: …The gay pogrom in Germany started exactly 70 years ago, in the summer of 1937. Gestapo men in leather trench coats entered [Alsterhaus department store] during business hours and rounded up about 40 gay employees, who were hauled off in vans waiting out on the street — where this year’s gay pride rally will be held.

What followed were weeks and months of “protective custody” and transfers to mental asylums for “curative treatment” and eventual sentencing to imprisonment in concentration camps. Bill O’Reilly just came in his pants. It’s the … Continued…

Could HIV’s days be numbered? If new research pans out, yes.

Some crafty German scientists managed to craft an enzyme that cuts HIV DNA from infected cells, according to a report in Science. The enzyme, Tre recombinase, took only three months to successfully destroy HIV living in human tissue - in a laboratory, of course.

Such an enzyme could potentially provide a cure. Alan Engelman of Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute writes, “A customized enzyme that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate (the) virus from AIDS patients.”

Though promising, the enzyme does not guarantee the end of HIV’s reign of terror.
Continued…

After a few false starts, the German government has confirmed that Danish-born Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian Ingar Dragset will construct a memorial for gay Holocaust victims. Like the nation’s other Holocaust memorials, the queer sculpture will be concrete. The original plan - a box like structure with a video loop of two men kissing - drew criticism for excluding lesbians. The new plan will include ladies. Of the $800,000 project German culture minister Bernd Neumann says: With the installation of a memorial in the middle of our capital, the resolution by the German government to commemorate the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime is realized. At least 44, 231 gays died under the Nazi’s monstrous … Continued…

The world seems to have forgotten the queer case of the amnesiac “piano man”. And what a queer case it is. And certainly worth remembering…

On 7 April, 2005, Andreas Grassl washed up on shore in Kent, England, where police questioned the 20-year old. Unfortunately memory eluded Grassl, who wore a suit with the labels removed, adding another element to the mystery. At the Medway Maritime Hospital, doctors gave the lost boy a pen and paper. Rather than writing his name, as doctors had hoped, Grassl drew a picture of a piano. The kid may not have known his name, but he sure as hell remembered how to tickle the ivories. He played for hours, thus garnering the Billy Joel inspired moniker, “Piano Man”. The media swarmed, following the story with tenacity, trying desperately to solve the mystery, break the story and put an end to the guessing game. It wouldn’t be months, however, until we learned the truth: the son of a German farmer, Grassl fled his conservative upbringing and wound up in England.

But why did he leave home? And, more importantly, how did he end up in the English Channel? According to today’s The Scotsman, Grassl’s a gay.
Continued…

If you guys are looking proof that queers are born, not made, dive into that there jump to see Bill Kaulitz of German boy band Tokio Hotel singing “It’s Raining Men” on a turn of the century episode of German Star Search.

It’s pretty fucking gay.

(Also, is it us or does Kaulitz look like some lesbian from an apocalyptic future?)
Continued…

Sure, the wide-world of sports doesn’t have the best pro-homo history, but European footballers and fans alike are joining forces to become more inclusive of their cock-sucking peers. Pink News UK reports:
LGBT supporters in Germany and Poland are participating in the Football Against Racism in Europe Action Week, which will see a series of events throughout the continent dedicated to promoting equality including anti-homophobia schemes.
A commendable gesture, yes, but we can’t help but wonder: since when does faggotry count as a race? Not to seem like we’re not down with greater struggles, but it seems a bit…off the mark. (But, in all seriousness, we think any movement against oppression’s pretty excellent.)

• 100 Lawyers Can’t Be Wrong: Oppose Anti-Gay Law in Virginia. [365 Gay]

• Gay Germans To Protest Pope. ‘Nuff said. [Deutche Welle]

• South African Trannies Find Inclusive Bank. Yay! [Afrol News]

• Closeted Rabbi Nabbed by Dateline Convicted. Double yay! [The Advocate]

• Lohan’s “missing” bag actually forgotten by assistant. Big shit. [Daily Mail]

• Again, things in Uganda not so good. [BBC]