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I saw the following claim on The Independent's web-site:

All six of Germany's Muslim members of parliament voted in favour of same-sex marriage as Angela Merkel faced criticism for opposing the bill and announcing: "Marriage is between a man and a woman."

But this second quote says "most", not all:

[...] her party's MP Cemile Giousouf, the first Muslim elected into the Bundestag in 2013, was praised on social media after endorsing the landmark measure. [...] “She's a Muslim woman and a Conservative. She voted for marriage equality, most of her CDU colleagues voted against.

I find it very, very hard to believe that a Conservative Muslim voted in favor of gay marriage. Islam is clear on homosexuality, and several Muslim countries impose the death penalty for homosexuality. I saw the Pew Research a few months ago citing that most European Muslims believe homosexual behavior is immoral.

I'd be surprised if six Christian American Republican Congressmen or Senators supported gay marriage. Yet I'm supposed to believe ALL six Muslim MPs did? (I find it hard to believe there are only six Muslim MPs in Germany in the first place, given the influx of refugees...)

So is it really true that all of Germany's Muslim MPs voted in favor of same-sex marriage?

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    This was a recorded vote, so you can check the vote for each Bundestagsmitglied in the official record. Cemile Giousouf did vote "ja". However, religious affiliation is not recorded (as it should be in a secular democracy), so there's hardly a way of verifying that there are exactly six (and not five or seven) Muslim Bundestag members. I'll pass to comment in detail on your obscure speculation about an effect of an "influx" of refugees; I'll only point out that refugees have no right to vote.
    – Schmuddi
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 6:34
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    @Lee: There is no contradiction between the initial "all" and the later "most". The former refers to Muslim MPs. The latter refers to the Christian Democratic Union MPs.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 8:02
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    @Federico: True. Perhaps I should have said something like "religious affiliation is not tracked in parliamentary affairs".
    – Schmuddi
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 8:41
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    In Europe there is a difference between a Conservative Muslim and a conservative Muslim. With a capital C, a Conservative is usually taken to be a member of a centre-right political party (as Cemile Giousouf is in the CDU, and she also happens to be Muslim), who may have any of a range of views between liberal (economically or socially), libertarian, conservative (economically or socially), capitalist, corporatist, mixed-economy, traditionalist, religious, reactionary, globalist or nationalist.
    – Henry
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 11:31
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    @TangoFoxtrot In Germany, it means exactly that. Lying to public administration about your citizenship isn't as easy in Germany as it is in the US. You won't get on the voters list without proof of citizenship.
    – Philipp
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 8:40

1 Answer 1

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Yes.

In 2016, there were 3 members of the Bundestag who officially stated that they are Muslim. However, a number of people did not give their religion.

The German newspaper Die Welt says that there are 6 Muslims: Ekin Deligöz, Omid Nouripour, Cem Özdemir, Özcan Mutlu, Aydan Özoguz, and Cemile Giousouf.

5 of them are in parties that primarily voted for marriage equality, while the last is in a Christian party which primarily voted no (that is what "most" is refering to in your quote).

The voting record is public, so you can verify that all 6 Muslims did indeed vote with "yes".

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    So there's a female Muslim in a conservative Christian party who voted for marriage equality – this fact alone might be a mind-blowing reveal for people who try to apply the Republican/Democrat political spectrum as a yardstick for anything other than US politics.
    – Schmuddi
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 8:45
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    @Schmuddi and it shows how even religious people are moving away from the laws laid down in their books. Secular morality leaves the rest in its dust.
    – hdhondt
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 10:08
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    Thank you Tim. Looks like unless they are lying about their religion (and I don't see reason they'd do that) this is the correct answer. @Schmuddi I agree, and it's especially embarrassing that I did this because I used to live in Canada for over a decade and there you find Conservative party MPs who support same-sex marriages. Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 21:38
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    Hoping for an outcome in contradiction to the evidence because it meets your political preferences is perhaps not the most skeptical stance!
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Jul 23, 2017 at 2:44
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    @Oddthinking I'm not "Hoping for an outcome in contradiction to the evidence" - I'm hoping that the 'no' answer can be justified by evidence. Commented Jul 23, 2017 at 18:34

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