How seriously do the Greens take religious policy?? Josef Winkler shows understanding for CDU's criticism of a party conference resolution. However, so the church-political speaker of the party in the our site interview, the governing party was only trying to distract attention from its own problems in this way.
Interviewer: What do you think of Grohe's criticism?
Winkler: I still find the criticism of the party conference's decision understandable. But I can only reject the expression. This is not about double talk. It is simply shortly before midnight at the party conference a motion passed, which gives expression to the displeasure of the base: with the fact that you can be terminated in many church institutions if you are homosexual and confess to it, or if you have the wrong religion or none at all. However, I do not know how to translate into concrete law what the party has decided here. I can't imagine that this would have been decided at a time of day when all delegates were still sitting at the table. And it will also certainly not be included in the election program.
Interviewer: Grohe says the Greens put church friends like Winfried Kretschmann and Katrin Goring-Eckhardt in the shop window, but in the program workshop, bitter opponents of the church set the tone.
Winkler: That is certainly wrong. It is true that since the party was founded, we have had a broad spectrum: from members who are active in the church to those who have left the church or those who don't think anything of the church at all. Nothing at all has changed in the many years that the Greens have been around. The thing is that the world has turned and there are fewer and fewer church members. This does not pass the Greens by without a trace. But this does not leave the CDU unscathed. The criticism is a bit like whistling in the woods, because the government is relatively often attacked by the EKD and the Catholic bishops for its political work. And there they smell competition from the Greens. In a way, this is also praise for us.
Background: CDU Secretary General Hermann Grohe has criticized the church and religion policy of the Greens as insincere. The party is moving devout Christians like Katrin Goring-Eckardt or Winfried Kretschmann into top positions, but in the party program, positions critical of the church are represented, Grohe told the news portal "Welt online".
The interview was conducted by Uta Vorbrodt – listen to it in full here.