Minister urges action against biologist’s anti-gay comments

Hessen’s science minister has asked the University of Kassel to investigate comments that one of its researchers made in an interview with an ultraconservative website.

In the interview with Kath.net, Ulrich Kutschera, an evolutionary biologist, described homosexual couples as “sterile erotic duos with no reproduction potential” and called gender research “the spinning of a feminist sect”, according to a Spiegel Online article published on 19 July. He was speaking in early July after the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, approved same-sex marriage.

Boris Rhein, Hessen’s state science minister, said in a statement on 18 July that the comments were “abstruse”. He called on the university to investigate whether the professor had violated his duties. The case could seriously damage the reputation of the university and the state, he said.