Einigkeit & Recht & Freiheit

Germany Legalizes Gay Marriage In Historic Vote.

June 30th, 2017

(Angela Merkel dropped her opposition to same-sex marriage virtually overnight earlier this week, and her fellow politicians have pushed for a vote on it before the Bundestag’s summer break — which happened to be this Friday, today. German efficiency at its best, is it not--?

In recent polls, the more than 80% of Germans were supportive of same-sex marriage. The German LGBT community and parties such as the SPD have been fighting for this for quite some time now, and now it finally became a reality. Surprisingly, without any of us really actively working towards it. 

I don’t have much time to work on drawings right now as we’re in the middle of moving apartments, but as a guy engaged to another guy, this is something beyond important to me. It’s a big, very important step in the right direction, and I wanted to do a little something for it. I’ll most definitely write a more detailed post about our journey to this point once we’re doing moving.

(This may be something many non-German people aren’t really  familiar with, but for us Germans it’s a pretty big deal :D 

GEMA [Gesellschaft für Musikalische Aufführungs- und Mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte; Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights] has been blocking YouTube videos with music of major label artists on YouTube -- that includes not only music videos, but many videos that contained background music as well -- ever since 2009, only four years after YouTube was created. 

This is the screen German YouTube users would face if a video they tried to view contained copyrighted music. Translation: “Unfortunately, this video is not available in Germany, because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights. Sorry about that.” 

Trust me, they’re not sorry. For those who live in a country that doesn’t have this sort of organization blocking videos for them it may be hard to imagine, but virtually all well-known songs/artists were blocked -- including PSY, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Rihanna, Rammstein, Oomph!, Katy Perry, Linkin Park, One Republic... a basically endlessly long list, really.

YouTube and GEMA were involved in a legal battle over copyright issues for years, until now! As of the morning of November 1st, 2016, the “blocking banners” have disappeared! YouTube and GEMA have finally managed to solve the conflict that have made it impossible for us to peacefully listen to music on YouTube for the past seven years. 

I’ve never quite thought about which one of my cities I like to visit most... from my north to my south, they’re all very beautiful and special, each with their own history and identity. 

Perhaps Bonn...? Maybe Berlin, or Frankfurt... ah, I really can’t pick just one, I apologize.

(Thank you so much ;__; <3 

Germany really does have many beautiful cities aside from just Berlin, and many of them are really old with a long history too! Like Hamburg, which has been rated Germany’s most popular city in a 2015 poll, and has a history going all the way back to the 8th century.

Anyhow, Ludwig has trouble picking favorites because his cities are what make him who he is, and historically, many of them have been very important to Germany’s future - like Berlin for obvious reasons, Bremen and Hamburg as two of Germany’s Hanseatic cities [and now two of our sixteen states], or Leipzig for its mass demonstrations in 1989, that played a big role in Germany’s reunification.

According to this website, the 10 most popular cities of us Germans are...

1) Hamburg 2) Munich 3) Cologne 4) Dresden 5) Freiburg im Breisgau 6) Berlin 7) Nuremberg 8) Lübeck 9) Münster 10) and Potsdam!

(Just saw Google’s doodle for Germany’s Unity Day! I like it even though it’s simple ♥

I hope this helps you a little? If you want to know something more specific, please let me know and I'll try to offer a more detailed explanation. Don’t worry tough, many bigger German cities like Hamburg, Munich, and Berlin are pretty multilingual, and most people in those cities will be able to have conversations in English as well---especially younger generations, as English is a mandatory class in German schools, introduced in elementary.

(Please do keep in mind that although German sentence structure and grammar are overall quite similar to English, there's some important differences. For example, there are two different German pronouns for the single English word "you." In German, we differentiate between the formal "you" and the informal "you." Germans actually have two verbs to describe the use of these specific pronouns:  "duzen" and "siezen," so "du" and "Sie."

First off, there's "du" which is impolite and usually used for family and friends or people younger than 18. Then there's "Sie" (with the S capitalized too), which is the polite form of it and most commonly used for doctors, teachers, strangers, people you generally aren't too familiar with. For people older than 18, no matter their job or whatever, you may ask for permission to use "du" instead, or they might just give you permission right away. Dropping those formalities is becoming more common among younger people. Regardless, if in doubt, sticking to the formal way is definitely the safer choice, as some people may deem anything else disrespectful. Aside from "du" or "Sie", there's various other forms of the word depending on who it is you're talking to, and how the word is used. It’s much like he/him/his, except with “you.”. The reason for the different word endings is the various genders of German words; similar to Spanish.