Liebe zwischen Männern?: Der deutsche Protestantismus und das Thema Homosexualität

Love Between Men? The German Protestantism and the Subject of Homosexuality]
To talk openly about the issue of homosexuality (and thereby about homosexuals) in the church and in society was not possible until the societal transformations after 1945, in effect not until the 1960s. And it was even in the 1970s, when the 'involved persons' themselves began to speak. In German Protestantism we can observe a process from treating homosexuality as an illness or as a case for pastoral care to its acceptance as 'something different' and finally to an issue that should be discussed pragmatically. Of course these developments overlaid each other, so in result we cannot draw a clear line of an historical correlation between the societal and church-internal developments. Relevant in this context are also the clerical public services law and the question of same-gender marriages.