On Saturday (July 23), the rainbow flag will be raised for the first time at the Bundestag.
For this year's Christopher Street Day (CSD), the rainbow flag is to fly in Berlin as early as 6:30 a.m. at the portals as well as on the tower of the Reichstag building.
The action was previously decided unanimously in the Bundestag Presidium. "This is an important symbol," Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) said.
"It is necessary. There is still far too much discrimination and hatred against queer people," she said.
The flag stands for tolerance towards the queer community, meaning: homosexuals, bi-sexuals, intersexuals or transsexuals, among others.
The Bundestag President had most recently signed the Charter for Diversity and also wants to implement it for the Bundestag administration with its 3,000 employees. "This is not just a signature," she said. "In the Bundestag administration, it must be a matter of course that everyone works side by side, no matter what religion, origin, gender or sexual orientation we have."
She herself will not participate in the Berlin CSD parade this Saturday due to scheduling conflicts, but plans to attend the CSD in her constituency in Duisburg on July 30. "This is already a tradition with me - and I have promised to do that in the new office, of course," she said.
In mid-April, the Federal Ministry of the Interior had officially granted permission for the rainbow flag to be hoisted in front of federal official buildings on certain occasions.
The CSD - internationally often referred to as "Pride" - is used in many places to commemorate events in 1969 in New York: at that time, police officers stormed the "Stonewall Inn" bar on Christopher Street and triggered a riot of gays, lesbians and transsexuals that lasted several days.
