"Whose city is this?" is the motto of this year's Berlin Foundation Week - "Whose state is this?" asks a high-profile panel on April 6 in the Meistersaal at Potsdamer Platz. The participants agree on the decisive point: 100 years after the adoption of the Weimar Constitution and 70 years after the implementation of the Basic Law there must be a stop to the unconstitutional church privileges as well as a stop to the religious restriction of civil liberties from the cradle to the grave.

More than half a billion euros of state payments per year are currently transferred by the federal states of Germany to the churches - in addition to all the money with which the state finances church social institutions. 100 years ago, the abolition of these state benefits was laid down in the Weimar Constitution. Yet despite the fact that this demand for abolition was reiterated in 1949 in the Basic Law, the money still goes to the Protestant and Catholic Church today. And despite massively shrinking membership numbers of the churches, the sum increases annually.

The so-called compromise proposal to modify § 219a of the German Criminal Code ("Advertising for Abortion"), which the government coalition presented in December 2018, does not improve the situation of physicians, pregnancy conflict counseling centers, and unintentionally pregnant women whatsoever. Therefore, the "Bündnis für sexuelle Selbstbestimmung" ("Alliance for Sexual Self-determination"), including the gbs, calls for a "nationwide campaign day for the abolition of § 219a StGB" on 26 January.

"But where there is danger, the saving powers will grow as well." With this Hölderlin verse, gbs spokesman Michael Schmidt-Salomon commented on the remarkable increase in the foundation's activities and the number of supporting members in 2018. In the past twelve months the number of "friends and supporters of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung" has grown by more than 1,500 persons, which means that for the first time, in the "Year of Human Rights", the gbs was endorsed by more than 10,000 supporting members.