2009 has been a great year for power gays and lesbians in politics — and they’ve been shattering all those invisible glass ceilings into a million shards. Earlier this year, we saw Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland become the world’s first gay head of state. And now, with the latest results in Germany’s elections just in, the joke on the streets of Europe’s largest economy is that it now has two Kanzlerinnen – Angela Merkel and the openly gay Guido Westerwelle, who led the Free Democratic Party to its largest win ever.
Westerwelle’s political coming out was five years ago in 2004 — when he brought his partner to Merkel’s 50th birthday party. Nobody blinked an eyelid then and nobody’s blinking an eyelid now.
Several years ago, another gay politician from the Social Democratic Party — Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin — was floated as a possible SPD candidate for the Chancellorship but alas his chances melted away like butter in a frying pan as soon as he formed a coalition with the socialist The Left party.
Westerwelle has strongly advocated for greater civil rights and adoption rights for same-sex couples, but of course, how well he performs in his new job will remain to be seen. For now, he and Merkel will have one helluva job leading Germany out of the recession.
5 Responses
September 30th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I don’t mean to be the annoying one, but…!
Jóhanna is not head of state, she is head of the government, which is different, even though in the end, it means she’s the one in charge. I don’t think we have ever seen any openly gay person elected to the rank of head of state.
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:18 am
In a republic isn’t the elected head of government the head of state? As in the USA? Unlike Canada, Australia, NZ, UK, or any country with a constitutional monarchy where the head of government is only that whereas the head of state is the monarch.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
@Ed Nope, there’s a President, who is the head of state, and a Prime Minister, who is the head of government, just like in France.
January 30th, 2010 at 10:02 am
[...] totally overlooked a trip made by Germany’s openly gay Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. This was Westerwelle’s first trip to Asia in his new role since he led the pro-business Free [...]
January 30th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
[...] totally overlooked a trip made by Germany’s openly gay Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. This was Westerwelle’s first trip to Asia in his new role since he led the pro-business Free [...]
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