Berlin celebrates Gay Pride with annual Christopher Street Day

With gay marriage being legalized in Germany last month, a recurrent theme of wedding imagery kept cropping up throughout the parade. Organizers of Berlin's Christopher Street Day stressed the importance of tolerance and inclusivity, underscored here with the proximity of revellers to the site of the deadly Christmas market van attack at the Breitscheidplatz Square last year, which cost 12 lives.

Not all participants, however, focused on the theme of matrimony. Some groups participating in the Pride parade rather paid attention to great detail when it came to highlighting their various fetish interests. Berlin is well known for its underground BDSM scene, attracting visitors from all over the world with knack for a bit of slap and tickle.

Berlin's annual parade lasts for miles and always attracts people in colorful costumes coming from near and far to attend the event. Whether can-can or rave, people dance on the streets and celebrate diversity in sexual orientation and gender identity. Berlin has been celebrating Gay Pride since 1979, growing steadily each year.

One of the largest Pride events in the world, close to a million people are expected to attend Berlin's Christopher Street Day - or CSD. The Gay Pride event is so popular that some Berlin neighborhoods like Kreuzberg have taken to organizing their own versions as well. Other cities across Germany also celebrate Pride in summer, with Cologne's CSD being equally popular.

There is also a political message to all the celebrations, which is best communicated by politicians taking part in the annual event. Green Party MP Volker Beck (right) and the Berlin state delegate in charge of the judiciary Dirk Behrendt (left) both joined in on the revelries, while making sure that everyone got the message that members of the LGBTQ community are part of all sections of society.

While Germany's inclusion of the LGBTQ community is taken for granted people in other countries around the world still face varying degrees of persecution on account of their sexual orientation. These visitors from Venezuela brought a bit of their native culture to Berlin's CSD, contributing to the multicultural flavor of Germany's biggest annual Gay Pride event.

But despite growing numbers of people who feel comfortable to make their sexual orientation public, hate crimes against gays, lesbians and other members of the LGBTQ community are also on the rise in Germany. This year's Pride event stressed a zero-tolerance attitude towards hate crimes, with slogans like "Nein zur Hassgewalt" (which translates as "Say no to hate crimes").