We want to promote the concept of tolerance in the world. But we don’t want to achieve the opposite by behaving imprudently. It is smarter to advance step-by- step and sensitively. I think it is important that we live by our own standards of tolerance and that we do not adopt sometimes less tolerant standards as our own. … My motto is: do what you like if it does not hurt anyone else.
—Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor, explaining why he won’t travel with his partner Michael Mronz to some of the world’s 75 countries that persecute gays; he’s already visited Yemen and Saudi Arabia without Mronz, but took him to China.
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Tagged: Germany, Guido Westerwelle, Saudi Arabia, Travel, yemen