Politics at odds

After the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the tax equality of homosexual partnerships, there is a heated debate about equality in adoption law as well.

"I don't know of any study that says that children who grow up in same-sex civil partnerships fare differently than children who grow up in mixed-sex marriages," CDU deputy leader Ursula von der Leyen told Deutschlandfunk radio in Cologne on Sunday. On the other hand, other Union politicians, such as the head of the NRW CDU, Armin Laschet, warn against such an adoption right.

Greens call for equality in adoption and tax law before summer recess. "Here we will force the Bundestag in any case to a decision! If the coalition does not come to its senses, we will put an amendment to the vote," said First Parliamentary Secretary Volker Beck on Sunday in Berlin. It is "absurd" to implement the Constitutional Court ruling on income tax, but ignore adoption law.

The Federal Minister of Labor had said that after the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on spousal splitting, the discussion would certainly continue. However, von der Leyen said that the first priority was to achieve equal tax treatment for gay and lesbian couples before the summer recess.

Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) reiterated his reservations about equal treatment of homosexual partnerships in adoption law. According to the will of the CSU, this should not happen before the Bundestag elections. "There must be no quick fix here. What is necessary is a very careful examination," the party leader told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Seehofer: Postpone until the fall

"We should discuss this ie calmly in the fall in the Bundestag," Seehofer added. The tax treatment of same-sex partnerships is legally easier to solve than the adoption law: "In the case of adoption law, it is primarily a question of the best interests of the child."

"The question of adoption cannot be answered with a quick fix," Volker Bouffier, Hesse's prime minister and CDU deputy leader, also told the Hamburg news magazine "Der Spiegel". According to Bouffier, "it's not about money, but about the well-being of children."Of course, Bouffier continued, there are same-sex couples who raise children lovingly. Nevertheless, many people, across party lines, felt "a certain uneasiness" about the ie. Bouffier: "I am also one of these people."

CDU deputy leader Armin Laschet told Spiegel magazine that children have the right to be different, to have a father and a mother. "To exclude this in principle, to give someone an individual right to equality, I think is wrong.CSU state group leader Gerda Hasselfeldt explained: On the subject of adoption rights, the CSU will only act "if and to the extent that the Federal Constitutional Court imposes it on us"."

Marital splitting leads to tax advantages for partners with different incomes. The Federal Constitutional Court had ruled on Thursday that this must also apply to registered homosexual civil partnerships. The discrimination was unconstitutional. The splitting advantage would also have to be applied retroactively from 1 January 2009. The first time that registered civil partnerships were introduced was August 2001.

According to a report in "Der Spiegel" magazine, the marital splitting for registered partnerships will be significantly more expensive for the treasury than previously predicted. This year alone, the coffers of the federal, state and local governments would be burdened with 175 million euros. This, he said, is clear from the Finance Ministry's draft bill to implement last week's ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court. In 2014, the tax equality of gay marriage cost the treasury 40 million euros, and in 2015 it would result in a revenue shortfall of 65 million euros. So far, the financial consequences of the change have been estimated by experts at about 30 million euros per year. The high shortfall in 2013 is explained by retroactive tax refunds for years since 2001.

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Christina Cherry
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