Germany’s LGBTQ+ Catholics gain new labour rights – will wider Church follow?
When Arturo Blazquez started studying theology three years ago, he approached it as a hobby, because he couldn’t conceive that he would be allowed to work in Germany’s Catholic Church as an openly gay man living with his husband in Berlin.
For decades, the Catholic Church has had the right to fire a gay employee if they were open about being in a same-sex partnership.
But last week, Blazquez’s pastime suddenly had the potential to become something more, when the German Catholic Church passed a change to its labour laws to allow openly LGBTQ+ people, including those in same-sex partnerships, to work for its institution. “I never thought a change like this was possible,” the 33-year-old Spanish teacher told Openly. “It gives me a lot of hope that the German (Catholic) Church has had the courage to change this, to walk towards a more humane Church.” The Catholic Church teaches that same-sex attraction is not inherently sinful, but homosexual acts are.
In Germany, the Church is the second-largest employer behind the state, with an estimated 800,000 employees. While welcoming the changes, LGBTQ+ Catholics in Germany warn that the new wording – which bans discrimination on the basis of “gender” and “sexual identity” – could leave transgender and non-binary employees unprotected. “Trans people aren’t explicitly named in the new employment law,” said Theo Schenkel, an openly trans man and religion teacher in the small southern German city of Waldshut-Tiengen, near the border with Switzerland. “It’s not really possible to rely on the new rules, we still depend on the bishop,” referring to the fact that each diocese can decide how to interpret the new law.
