Berlin LSU Demands Dismissal of the LGBTQ+ Commissioner

The Berlin government should consider the “removal” of the Queer Commissioner Alfonso Pantisano. This was demanded on Wednesday by the state association of lesbians and gays in the Union (LSU) via social media. The background is an interview remark by the SPD politician, in which, after the attack on Berlin’s CSD parade on Saturday — during which an Islamist attacker killed a woman and injured 31 people — he categorized Islamists as part of “conservative forces.”

Pantisano and his brother Luigi, who recently became co-leaders of the Left Party, “want or, worse, apparently cannot distinguish between extremists, Islamists and bourgeois conservatives,” commented the LSU. “If legitimate concerns about queerphobic violence by Islamists are dismissed as ‘right-wing’ in a blanket way or if conservative values are equated with extremism, that shows one thing above all: No knowledge and ideological blinkers do not help protect LSBTIQ+ in any meaningful way.” One must be able to state that Islamism “is a deadly threat to our freedom and security,” and extremism from all directions must be fought.”

“Conservatives stand on the bedrock of the Basic Law and support the rule of law and individual freedom,” the LSU added. “Whoever blinds themselves to real dangers facing the queer community harms the people they should actually protect — especially as the contact person for Queeres Berlin or as the chair of a party represented in the Bundestag. We will not let the difference be talked away from us, and we will not be smeared!”

Pantisano’s statements about “(very) conservative forces”

Since Monday, Pantisano’s interview remark had already gone viral on social networks — partly in circles that also were outraged by individual lines from a vigil, by brief smiles from politicians at a mourning march, by the SPD’s call for a constitutional amendment long sought by CSDs or by LSU, or by criticism that the federal government’s queer commissioner wore a sports jacket at a memorial — as if the most important thing on a Sunday for a visitor to an event is to have the right black outfit.

Pantisano was asked on Sunday morning in a dedicated rbb24 special whether he would today repeat exactly the line from Friday, which said that queer people are currently politically attacked “from the right, especially from conservative forces, from right-wing extremists, from neo-Nazis.” Pantisano replied: “Yes, because among conservative forces I also include all religious groups who have a problem with us. And the Islamists belong there. We have a problem with some people in Islam who demonize everything we live, and unfortunately we see that in many other religions as well.” One must protect ourselves and look at “how we can continue to live in freedom.”

“Why are there no calls for his resignation?” asked Bild journalist Paul Ronzheimer of the viral clip. “Why doesn’t @kaiwegner just throw him out?” asked Welt journalist Ulf Poschardt. “Unbearable and dangerous,” commented FDP politician Linda Teutenberg. A column in B.Z. urged Pantisano to resign. The columnist, who often rails against a supposed “woke ideology,” had previously called for his resignation.

What is missing from the viral clip: “We are currently being attacked in a highly polarized way from all sides,” Pantisano said in a follow-up, pointing to the story as well as to developments in Russia or the United States. In other parts of the interview he had shown emotion about the victims of the terrorist attack, about what is still unknown, and about upcoming memorials within the community, saying: “We must support each other, especially now in these difficult moments.”

The original quote that Pantisano was confronted with came from a broader context on Friday evening, a day before the attack. In the rbb’s Abendschau segment, the piece discussed the simultaneous scheduling of the Drag March for the CSD and the independently organized Dyke* March. The interview subject compared this to two birthdays you are invited to — if you like both, you can manage both. “Pantisano is appealing to the entire community to stay together,” the RBB report noted. Then the quote: “We are currently being attacked politically from the right, especially from very conservative forces, from right-wing extremists, from neo-Nazis.”

Perhaps he clarified this on camera, for instance in light of the rise of right-wing counter-demonstrations against CSDs nationwide, including one registered and held in Berlin, with queer-phobic rhetoric that ranges from the AfD to “Nius,” even into the “very conservative” camp, with setbacks in the status of trans people in several countries. Such context, however, was missing in the brief rbb piece as in the broader debate of the last few days.

Pantisano: “I know I will make mistakes”

Pantisano, who has previously been accused of making casual remarks or downplaying Islamism, posted a longer Instagram note on Wednesday titled “Thoughts after this horror.” There he stressed that in recent years he has “repeatedly stated clearly” that there is a “massive problem with radical Islamism.” But he also noted “problems with other religious interpretations” and “extremism.” The former activist from “Enough is Enough” highlighted the many ongoing disadvantages and challenges, saying the dignity of queer people is trampled every day, and added that he reads the criticism “of individual pictures or moments or statements” from the past few days and “listens” to it. He said he would also make mistakes. “Especially in days like these. Because I am grieving too. Because I am exhausted too. Because I too sometimes take hours to find the right words.”

Update 31.7., 12h: Pantisano published another clarification

On Friday, Berlin’s Queer Commissioner Alfonso Pantisano emphasized in a new social-media post that he would today “rephrase the criticized interview sentence more precisely” and that he had “explicitly not referred to democratic conservatism in our country.”

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