The featured article in today's Wikipedia is
Paragraph 175 which was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994, which made male homosexual sex a crime.
It is worth reading this article in its entirety and reflecting on the rights gay people have in Ireland and in Europe, not forgetting the rights which have yet to be won.
It's interesting to note how progressive the East Germans were:
On 1987-08-11 the Supreme Court of the GDR struck down a conviction under Paragraph 151 on the basis that "homosexuality, just like heterosexuality, represents a variant of sexual behavior. Homosexual people do therefore not stand outside socialist society, and the civil rights are warranted to them exactly as to all other citizens." One year later, the Volkskammer (the parliament of the GDR), in its fifth revision of the criminal code, brought the written law in line with what the court had ruled, striking Paragraph 151 without replacement. The act passed into law 1989-05-30. This removed all specific reference to homosexuality from East German criminal law.
