As I was walking from my hostel to school, I couldn’t help but notice a big poster on the wall. It was placed on a building within a Turkish community. I was really impressed by the image and I decided to talk about it in the class. As I was speaking about it one of my team mates from Germany gave me his opinion. Daniel Cupic, a German student from IMK, was the one who let me know that the poster was written in Turkish; he also thought that the reason for it was that the Turkish community in Berlin is less tolerant on the gay population. It is really important to remember that the Turks in Germany form the largest ethnic minority in Germany.
Is very common now to see homosexual and lesbian couples displaying affection in the US but never have I seen an advertising campaign like “Love deserves respect”. This campaign against homophobia launched in Berlin in March 2009, sponsored by Germany's Lesbian and Gay Federation in response to recent anti-gay attacks in the city. The main purpose is to extinguish prejudices, fight for respect and demonstrate that there is no place for homophobia in Berlin.
Is very common now to see homosexual and lesbian couples displaying affection in the US but never have I seen an advertising campaign like “Love deserves respect”. This campaign against homophobia launched in Berlin in March 2009, sponsored by Germany's Lesbian and Gay Federation in response to recent anti-gay attacks in the city. The main purpose is to extinguish prejudices, fight for respect and demonstrate that there is no place for homophobia in Berlin.
There are also two other poster that feature variations of lesbian and heterosexual couples embraced in a kiss. It also contains the words "Love Deserves Respect" in German, as well as Turkish and Arabic. There is a strong opposition to homosexuals, especially amongst the younger population, and recently there has been increasing violence towards gays and lesbians. So what they want to demonstrate by having a heterosexual as well as lesbian and homosexual in the posters, is that “it is always a matter of love”. Since this campaign began it is possible to find the message on numerous posters distributed throughout the German capital. At the beginning of the campaign they started with posters in 160 regions but at the end of the year that number should rise to more than 250.
I can only hope that the Berlin poster campaign achieves the desired effect, and people especially the younger population, abandon their animosity against heterosexuality. And hopefully anytime soon there can be also a campaign like this in the USA. Not only the image of the poster is impressive, but the purposed and the name of the campaign “Love deserves respect” are really appropriate.
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