The marriage is the icing on the cake of his relationship with Dieter Schmitz, Bernd Göttling is sure of that. The marriage was much too late, says Schmitz. The couple has been together since 1980 and same-sex marriage has only been possible since last year. On October 1, 2017, the two got married - on the day the marriage was introduced for all.
The couple also sees his marriage as a symbolic gesture. Homosexuality needs to be more widely recognized and tolerated. "You only have one life," says Schmitz, "you have to live that way you want it." Even in their own families, they were asked why they had to marry. Too widespread, says Schmitz, is still the attitude: "Everything is wonderful and beautiful, they can do that, but if that was our son, I would tell others."
Göttling and Schmitz even made it to the museum with their marriage: the wardrobe of their wedding, a partner look made of black leather jackets, white jeans and gray shirts, can be seen in the House of History in Bonn.
Statistics on same-sex marriages incomplete
The two are one of over 10,000 homosexual couples who have married in the past twelve months or converted their registered civil partnership into a marriage. That estimates the German press agency after a survey under registry offices.
In Berlin, a total of 1537 homosexual couples were married in eight out of twelve districts, and 1056 in Cologne, which corresponds to 18 percent of all marriages in the city. Also in Hamburg (800) and Frankfurt am Main (673) many same-sex couples have been married since the change of law. Especially in the first months after the change in the law, the rush to the registry offices was great.
How many same-sex couples have exactly married since the amendment was not recorded by the Federal Statistical Office. This requires a change in the population statistics law. In marriages so far it provides only the transmission of citizenship, place of residence, date of birth, previous marital status and number of children together.
The sex is raised only with civil partnerships. Should the law be amended later this year, according to the Federal Statistical Office, numbers for same-sex marriages could be available by mid-2019.