Private Life
"Out" for some 50 years, he has always been living in stable partnerships, since 1977 with Wolfgang Gindorf né Christiaens, born in 1956. Together, they sued for legal marriage rights all the way to the German Supreme Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) - in vain at first, but with the Court ruling that the German Congress should provide for some legal institute for same-sex partnerships. This ultimately led to the Federal Domestic Partnership Law (copying marriage law in most respects but name) which came into force on 1 August 2001. After the necessary additional State law was passed and came into effect on 1 October 2001, Rolf and Wolfgang were legally joined that same day at the local Registry Office. Thus, after their long fight for rights, values and symbols, they were finally married - shortly before their silver wedding anniversary.
Read more about this topic: Rolf Gindorf
Famous quotes containing the words private life, private and/or life:
“Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damn business.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure—the web—of society needed reform, not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)