Laura Halding Hoppenheit is Romanian, studied in Bucharest but has been living in Germany for over 30 years now. She owns some pubs for gays in Stuttgart and fights for their rights. Laura announced she would take part in the Romanian Gay Fest 2008 on May 19-25 but this time, she says, with German political support.

She plans to talk about rights of homosexuals and offers to develop humanitarian projects for AIDS patients. However, she still recalls the way Gay Fest was received last year: with fights and lots of name callings.

This year, Laura is persevering and will not hold back from anything. She will be accompanied this year by 2002-2005 German Justice minister Herta Daeubler Gmelin. This way, Laura said maybe politicians will approve with a press conference after the demonstration. She plans to engage politicians in a public debate about gay people's rights.

Moreover, she urges the Romanian press to keep a neutral coverage on the event in order to encourage people to accept gay people's right to demonstrate and live their life as they see fit. She declared that initially, German people had the same reaction but with logic arguments and lots of public debates, citizens understood that they need to let them be. She added that Romanians should do the same.