Fridae

Berlin lawmakers have voted 89-78, with abstentions, to install Klaus Wowereit, an openly gay man as the new mayor of Berlin. Wowereit will head an interim administration until elections for a new administration are held this fall.

The 47-year-old lawyer replaces Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, who had been in office more than 15 years. Diepgen, a Christian Democrat was pushed out because of a city financial crisis sparked by a four-billion-mark (US $1.76 billion) deficit in a bank controlled by the city due to bad loans contracted during the real estate boom that Berlin experienced following reunification.

The Christian Democrats did not have an issue with Wowereit's sexuality saying that homosexuality was normal, according to the British Telegraph.

Wowereit, a Social Democrat who came out as gay before his nomination last week has not encountered much opposition from the people. According to a survey of voters by the Forsa public opinion institute, Wowereit's sexuality is a non-issue for most voters in Berlin. The survey revealed that 84 percent did not have a problem with the idea of a gay Berlin mayor.

An estimated 250,000 and 350,000 gays and lesbians live in the German capital which has a population of 3.4 million.

From 1919 to 1932, Berlin was a haven for gay men and lesbians who pursued their lifestyle openly and without fear of reprisal until Hitler came into power. In 1933, the Nazi regime closed numerous gay bars and clubs, branded homosexuals as deviant and thousands were shipped off to concentration camps.