Cologne to feature gay & lesbian traffic lights

Cologne in western Germany plans to temporarily change 20 traffic lights for pedestrians to show images of same-sex couples, city officials told German media.

"Symbols of same-sex couples are currently being prepared for the period surrounding Christopher Street Day," spokesman Jürgen Müllenberg told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

The Cologne Pride parade is one of Europe's largest Pride festivals and will this year observe 50 years since the Stonewall riots in New York's Christopher Street. The riots saw lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people resist police during a raid on June 28, 1969.

The city plans to change traffic lights located along the parade route, a spokesman told the DPA news agency.

The city did not say when they would revert the same-sex traffic lights to standard ones.

Several German cities have unique traffic lights. Berlin's lights feature the iconic Ampelmännchen, Bonn's feature Beethoven, who was born in the former capital, and Trier's feature hometown philosopher Karl Marx.

The western town of Friedberg recently transformed some of its lights to feature Elvis Presley, who was stationed nearby as a US army soldier in the late 1950s.

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