Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is one of Europe's leading advocates of LGBT rights. He is member of Germany's parliament, the Bundestag,and is known as the father of the German Registered Partnership Act. Today's Out Spotlight is Volker Beck.

Volker Beck born December 12 1960 in Stuttgart Germany on December 12, 1960. Prior to becoming politically active in the peace movement in the 1980's, Volker Beck studied at the University of Stuttgart. In 1985, he joined the Green Party. In 1987, he became responsible for LGBT issues in the Green Party caucus in the Bundestag.

From 1991 to 2004, Beck was spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD). He is credited with placing the issue of same-gender partnerships and a LGBT anti-discrimination law on the parliamentary agenda.

Beck has represented Cologne in the Bundestag since 1994. He is Green Party Whip for the Alliance 90/Greens caucus, a member of the Greens' party council, and human rights spokesman for the parliamentary group. He was legal affairs spokesman for the Alliance 90/Greens parliamentary group (1994-2002) and political coordinator of the Working Group on Internal and Legal Affairs, Women and Youth within the parliamentary group's executive committee (1998-2002).

He is a supporter of gay marriage and has been referred to as the Father of the German Registered Partnership Act.

Between 2001 and 2004 he was chief negotiator for his party on the new immigration law coming into to force in 2005. He is known publicly for being a very tough negotiator.

In 2006, he sponsored an anti-discrimination act in civil law and at the workplace, outlawing discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, sex, sexual identity, religion, age, and disability.

Beck believes that Germans must assume responsibility for their history before they can shape a future. He has sought compensation for victims of National Socialism, including financial reparations for persons subjected to slave labor under the Nazi regime negotiating for the foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (slave labor recompensation).

Beck serves as a trustee of several foundations that remembers victims.

In 2003, the German Bundestag decided on the initiative he presented for the Federal Republic of Germany erecting a national memorial in the center of Berlin for homosexuals persecuted by the Nazi Party.

Not looking to the past, he looks at the present and future as well.

In May of 2006, Beck was attacked and injured during a Gay Rights demonstration in Moscow, called Moscow Pride. His attack as well as his participation at the Moscow Pride Festival is featured in the documentary Moscow Pride '06.

On May 2007 he was arrested and put in a bus in front of the Moscow City Hall by the police. He had wanted to hand over a petition signed by several Members of Parliament at Moscow City Hall. He was attacked and had eggs thrown on his head. Attacked before, his partner Jacques Teyssier tried to protect him from attacks by anti-gay protesters.

In 2008, he spoke out saying the German Parliament should raise more money to fight against right wing extremists rising in Germany.

Beck has been honored over the years for his dedication to the issues he has championed. In 2001 INGLO honored his work for the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in Germany with the Like-a-rock Award.

That same year the Berlin Gay Pride festival honored him with the Rainbow Award.

On October 3, 2002, he was honored by the then German President Johannes Rau on the advice of Jewish organizations (the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Jewish Claims Conference) as Knight of the Distinguished Service Cross.

And Equality Forum honored Beck in May of 2005 as one of forty heroes for his extraordinary contributions toward LGBT equality. He is the only non-North American who was honored.

Beck lived in a long-term partnership with Jacques Teyssier until Teyssier's death from cancer in Berlin on July 25, 2009. The couple had officially registered their partnership in 2008, after 16 years together.

"Human rights that do not apply to everyone are not human rights at all."