EDGE Ft. Lauderdale

Berlin’s openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit is one of the names most talked about as a strong candidate for chancellor of Germany, but Wowereit was coy when the Bay Area Reporter asked him about whether he had plans to be a candidate for his country’s top job.

"No, I am not a candidate for chancellor," he said during an informal news conference in San Francisco last week. "First, I am the mayor of Berlin and I have to do my job and the rest, we will see."

But a skeptical German journalist was quick to follow up, telling the mayor, "But your name is on the table."

"My name is on the table but I am not the man who put it on the table, only the journalists," Wowereit chided. "It’s not my idea."

The mayor added that he thought Germany would accept a gay chancellor, but the biggest challenge ahead would be to gain more support for his party, the Social Democratic Party, which garnered only 23 percent support in the last election. He said the consideration of candidates for chancellor should come after strengthening his party.

Wowereit was in San Francisco last weekend to join with hundreds of other openly LGBT elected and appointed officials from around the world at the 25th annual International Gay and Lesbian Leadership Conference. The conference included the highest-ranking openly gay member of the Obama administration, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, and out Congress members Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and Jared Polis (D-Colorado). [See story, page 1.]

At the press conference, Wowereit, 56, was asked about his speech to the leadership conference in which he said that the United States does not have the moral authority to put itself above other nations. He explained that because America does not allow for same-sex marriage on the federal level, it had no moral authority to hold itself up as an example for other countries.

Germany does not allow for gay marriage per se, but it does offer civil unions that give same-sex couples all the rights of marriage with the notable exception of adoption rights. A gay couple in Germany, he explained, cannot adopt a child jointly; only one partner can adopt a child as a single person.

"That is crazy," Wowereit said of the law. "It makes no sense."

The news conference was held on Friday, December 4. Earlier, Wowereit met with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). He said they talked about the overriding problems they have in common: shrinking budgets and looming deficits.

"The deficit in California is high and the deficit in Berlin is also not in good shape. And therefore I think we have a lot of the same problems," he said. "In California and Berlin, too, what you need is money to finance all that the citizens want to have in education, in health care, in social projects, and therefore we need the money. If there is no acceptance in the population to pay taxes for that then it can’t work. On the other side, in Germany, for the new (conservative) government, they want to reduce taxes and that is dangerous as well."

The B.A.R. asked Wowereit if he had any advice on how Newsom could better handle the omnipresent problem of the homeless in San Francisco. He said that one of the biggest problems is that many of the homeless would prefer to live on the streets but he added that social services should be available for those who are homeless because they have fallen on financial hard times.

Wowereit said it was his second visit to San Francisco; the first was 20 years ago while on vacation.

"For me San Francisco is the most European city in America," he said.

Berlin celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this year. Wowereit said that lingering divisions between East and West Berlin are quickly disappearing in large part because of immigrants to the city who never lived in a divided Berlin. He explained that 1.5 million people have migrated to Berlin over the past 15 years.

When Wowereit was elected in 2001, he became the first openly gay mayor of a major city in Germany. He said that his sexual orientation did not hurt him in his campaigns.

"It’s not a problem for politicians to be openly gay in Germany today," he said, "but it is not the reality for all gay and lesbian people in our society."

A German reporter brought up the increase in anti-gay violence in Amsterdam and asked Wowereit if he was concerned about homophobia in Berlin.

"It’s not a real danger now but we have to be really careful about it," he said. "You have a tendency among young people with more homophobia. You have a lot of attacks, especially from the immigration community. That is not so dangerous that it is ... one of the main problems but you have to protect it now before it is too late."

Wowereit was asked whether he thought that the growing Muslim population in Germany and Western Europe could be a threat to gay rights.

He responded, "That is a very difficult question and therefore, I do not want to answer it in a direct way. We have to work for an education in families, cultures, and in religions that discrimination can’t be a part of religion or behavior."

Wowereit’s news conference was held at the German Consulate in Pacific Heights before a reception that was being hosted by Berlin’s tourism board. The board hosted local travel journalists and others involved in the travel profession.

Burkhard Kieker, the CEO of Berlin Tourism Marketing, said that they noticed a 20 percent increase in American tourists to Berlin in August and he explained that it may be because Berlin is much more affordable than other European capital cities.

"I hate the word but Berlin is cheap," he said.

Wowereit was quick to interrupt with a chuckle, "No, affordable."

Kieker said that U.S. visitors ranked Berlin third overall among foreign tourists who visit Germany. Italy was first, followed by Great Britain.

The tourism official added that his office didn’t have any official studies on how important gay tourism is to the overall tourism industry of Berlin but noted, "We have the feeing it is very, very important."



For video of the press conference, visit http://www.berlinmayor.blogspot.com.