A group of Pride-goers at a past Christopher Street Day | Photo: Flickr/Jörg Kanngießer
Youth members of Germany’s far-right political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), are saying they don’t feel welcome at Berlin Pride.
According to a report from the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, Christopher Street Day (CSD), organizers at Berlin Pride, denied AfD a stall.
David Eckert, the head of the Berlin chapter of Junge Alternative (the party’s youth wing), made a Facebook post and video blasting the decision to deny them space.
Eckert claimed CSD sent them an email about the denial. CSD reportedly said ‘people and organizations who try to create a climate of fear and exclusion such as the AfD … are not welcome’.
Founded in 2012, the AfD advertises itself as a center-right conservative party for the middle class. It boasts stances on numerous topics like climate change and European integration.
The party is against same-sex marriage, but allows civil unions. They also oppose same-sex couples adopting. Furthermore, the party advocates for traditional gender roles and ‘family values’.
AfD’s leader, Alice Weidel, is an out lesbian and tries to position the party as one that protects LGBTI people from immigrants. As Eckert says in his post, they are against illegal immigrants, the ‘majority’ of which come from anti-LGBTI countries.
Neither Weidel nor Eckert acknowledged LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers.
‘Not every gay person wears vinyl and leather, struts around with a handbag and paints their nails,’ Eckert further says in the video, claiming AfD represents conservative LGBTI people.
A rise in fringe voices
There have always been differing political voices.
Lately, however, the rise in alt-right and right-wing voices have been gaining more and more traction.
Numerous groups have crashed various cities’ Pride events, or tried to, including Istanbul and Sofia.
Last year, a convicted white supremacist planned an attack on a gay pride event at a pub in England. He ultimately avoided prison with an order for an indefinite psychiatric hospital stay.
The United States also faced their own right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August last year. White supremacists marched with tiki torches and chanted various slurs and hate messages. The subsequent protest against them and conflict resulted in the death of protester Heather Heyer.
Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report revealing white supremacist propaganda increased on US college campuses by 258% between 2016 and 2017.
