Allow me: Tom and Tobias, two gay men in full swing who earn well and feel socially accepted. But Tobias is also afraid. Of "all the Arabs", for example. And Tom doesn't like queers at all. "They give the wrong impression of us gays."
In just a few decades, Germany has developed into a country where a gay couple can build a house on the outskirts of town and the whole neighbourhood comes to the topping-out ceremony. As long as the two, let's call them Tom and Tobias, pay taxes, dress neatly, compensate for their desire to have children with a dog and don't celebrate orgies in their home, the permed mayor from the CDU even allows them something similar to marriage.
"You're still allowed to say that"
Tom and Tobias feel accepted. As educated average gays, they mourn the red-green party, tease the two liberal lesbians at games night with the FDP's latest poll results and wish everyone a happy life. Tom and Tobias, the mayor and the lesbian couple - they all sympathise with democratic parties and also belong socially to the centre of society. They would never, ever join forces with right-wingers who shout "Germany to the Germans" and persecute other people with their intolerance and stupidity.
However, there are still some things that can be said. For example, that it is mostly young people of Turkish or Arab origin who attack homosexuals. After all, all the statistics prove that. Or that men who behave in a vulgar manner are fuelling new intolerance against gays. But first things first.
"I have nothing against Muslims, but ..."
Statistics are seductive. They seem so scientific. But there is a flaw: statistics often prove exactly what their authors want to prove. Let's assume that there were five attacks against gays or lesbians holding hands in Dortmund last month. Three of the attacks were committed by Arab and Turkish youth cliques. The other two were committed by fans of the Borussia football club who needed an outlet after a home defeat against Schalke04. Then Tom and Tobias are absolutely right that 60 per cent of homophobic attacks were committed by Muslims. From this they conclude - like most of their neighbours - that migrants are more homophobic than German-born citizens. Ergo, Muslims tend to be dangerous for gays.
This example raises two questions: 1) Do Germans who beat up gays tend to be fans of Borussia Dortmund? 2) Did the statisticians perhaps simply focus on certain commonalities and ignore others? How about the criteria "education and social status" or "gender", for example? Or the experts asked about body weight. Then the result would probably be completely different.
"Everyone can do what they want, but ..."
As well as Muslims, our gay couple also avoid queers. Tom finds it embarrassing when a man gesticulates like a woman and talks in an affected manner. "I'm gay because I like men, so only straight-acting please," reads his secret sex profile.
In Germany, this demarcation from the feminine man goes back to the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. For part of the gay movement at the time, the ideal was to be a hardened defender of race and fatherland. For example, Adolf Brand, the founder of the world's first gay magazine, labelled the photos of naked young men "German Race" or "Race and Beauty". An ideological trick also dates from this time, which was later used by the Neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen took over: Emphatically masculine, even martial homosexuals claimed that they were destined by nature to fight. After all, they didn't have to take women and children into consideration and could live out their urges together. Only faggots are therefore perverted. The true homosexuals are hyper-masculine fighting drones. This also partly explains how an openly homosexual man could become the leader of the SA. Ernst Röhm was a highly decorated daredevil during the First World War. When he became too rebellious for his patron Adolf Hitler, the latter had him and his "homosexual clique" murdered in 1934.
In the morally strict, homophobic post-war years, middle-class homosexuals preached conformity to social norms. They liked to describe themselves as "convinced bachelors". Some even felt attracted to the male community in the Catholic Church, even though they had to hide their homosexuality there. The "bourgeoisie" distanced themselves from "effeminate" and rebellious gays who publicly flaunted their sexual orientation. However, the student revolt of 1968 ultimately created the left-liberal permissiveness in society from which even those gays and lesbians who like to mock "do-gooders" benefit today. But the mindset of the conformists can still be observed in 2015: CSD yes, but please wear jeans and a T-shirt instead of exposing your hideously hairy arse cheeks in public. And don't constantly speak out loudly against homophobia. For example, anyone who presses charges against someone who calls for the murder of homosexuals on Facebook is only fuelling further hatred. Just don't provoke. Silence is the first civic duty.
Minority joins minority
So Tom and Tobias are two polite contemporaries who consider themselves left-liberal and simply don't particularly like Muslims and queers. Incidentally, the two examples have something crucial in common: the gay couple construct groups of people who allegedly threaten their - Tom's and Tobias' - position as representatives of the centre of society.
Tom and Tobias see themselves as members of a minority that has achieved recognition. Most Germans vote in favour of marriage for all, and adoption rights for all are only a matter of time. Germany has almost made it. And now these Muslims are coming from all these backward countries and bringing their hatred of gays with them. The more of them that settle in Germany, the couple fears, the more uncomfortable it will become for homosexuals. Almost as threatening to Tom and Tobias, albeit indirectly, are all those gays who do not adhere to social norms and gender images. Because they turn the majority against the minority, say Tom and Tobias. "Do you have to talk loudly about your last sexual partner on the bus? Do you have to scream so loudly after every stupid joke? Can't you just behave like normal men?"
The fairy tale of western culture
Acceptance as a result of our culture? The homophobic Christian sexual morality has characterised the West for so long that the excesses continue to this day. It is only 31 years since a German army general was dismissed because he was homosexual. It is only 21 years since the German government cancelled Paragraph 175, which labelled gays as criminals. It is only six years since an Austrian court banned a deceased, right-wing populist governor from being labelled gay. Some Bundesliga stars are still publicly snogging alleged girlfriends even though they are gay. And many a Catholic housewife still rails publicly against the perverted arse-fuckers. If our society can tolerate such "Christian people", why can't we trust it to keep the intolerant Muslims in check? The fact that Tom and Tobias differentiate between Muslims and Germans is simply nonsense in terms of cultural history and sociology. The real front line is between tolerant citizens and homophobic hordes.
Unbent through life
Recognition as a result of adaptation? The bourgeois homosexual organisations failed in the 1950s and 1960s to get rid of Paragraph 175. Only persistent, publicly fought disputes led to the legislator gradually granting homosexuals equal rights. Gays and lesbians hardly owe their widespread social acceptance to the fact that most of them have always behaved in a conformist manner. Only those who confidently demonstrate their difference to the majority as something that is part of their personality, only those who can withstand conflict and controversy, change heteronormative viewing habits and ways of thinking. So it's not homosexuals like Tom and Tobias who bring about change and progress, but those individualists who go through life unbowed. The odd fag is one of them.
The author would like to thank the social scientist Dr Andreas Heilmann for a stimulating discussion.
