The political and media coverage of the recent car ramming attack at Berlin Pride seems to focus exclusively on the Islamist threat in the midst of European societies. That the attack was directed specifically at queer visibility and the fact that the incident left one Polish woman dead is often sidelined. If, in 2025, Friedrich Merz justified the rainbow flag not flying from the Bundestag during the Berlin Pride, saying that parliament was not a “circus tent”, and if he now stands in solidarity with the queer community, it is safe to say that not all the support currently voiced is necessarily genuine.
Conservative parties claim to defend the liberties, also of queer people, while historically they have depicted queer communities as a threat to the family and Christian morality. Now they publicly lament LGBTIQIA+ people as civilian (not queer) victims to promote tighter surveillance of Islamist groups and more restrictive migration policies.
