German museum launches show on 150 years of gay history

Germany's main national history museum on Wednesday launched an exhibition tracing 150 years of gay history in the country, including the first uses of the term "homosexual," the brutal Nazi-era repression of gays and gradual moves toward legal equality starting in the 1960s.

The exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, which is staging it together with the capital's privately run Gay Museum, has been four years in the planning but is opening amid a new debate in Germany over whether to allow full-fledged marriage for same-sex couples. They have been able to enter civil partnerships since 2001 but much of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party is reluctant to go further.

Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said at the show's presentation that it "puts the current debate about legal equality into a historical context." She said it shows "how hard-fought the progress we can speak of today was, not just legally but also in society's perceptions."