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Amsterdam, Aug. 1, 2009 [© DutchAmsterdam.nl] — Some 560.000 people watched the Canal Parade, the annual high point in Amsterdam’s Gay Pride week.
That is more than the nearly half a million spectators at last year’s parade, and the highest number ever, says Frank van Dalen, Chairman of organiser ProGay. Amsterdam police confirms the number of visitors.
The 14th edition of the event saw eighty decorated boats carrying everyone from scantily-clad gays to well-dressed politicians — singing, dancing or prancing to the music.
Along the Prinsengracht and the river Amstel more than half a million people watch and cheer, in an atmosphere police called ‘fantastic!’
The Canal Parade is now Amsterdam’s second most-popular yearly event, after Queen’s Day — the annual celebration of the Queen’s birthday.
The boats carried more politicians this year than in any previous year. Many of them had advertised their participation in press releases, causing some homosexuals to complain that the politicians are ‘hijacking’ the party. Member of Parliament Ger Koopmans replied, “If you don’t come, people say politicians are afraid to show up. But when we do come they accuse us of stealing their party.”
There were also boats with top sporters, entertainers, students, and representatives of varous gay-friendly companies. There was even a ‘holy boat,’ with Christian homosexuals.
WEDDING
During the boat parade Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen married five Dutch-American gay couples — a political signal to the U.S., where only six states have legalized same-sex marriages.
Ex-politician Borris Dittrich, currently working with Human Rights Watch in New York, witnessed the weddings. He is optimistic that New York will one day also allow same-sex weddings, “Certainly after the ceremony here in Amsterdam, which will not go unnoticed abroad.”
INTOLERANCE
That not everyone in Amsterdam has an open attitude toward gays was evident in a piece of grafitti chaulk onto a bridge near the start of the parade: “Homos are going to hell.”
Says, ProGay’s Van Dalen: “That one message was overshadowed 560.000 times today by another message: of tolerance.”
PARTY WITH A MESSAGE
Like most of the spectators, many of the participants are not gay or lesbian, but are there out of solidarity — or simply because the Canal Parade is a spectacular party.
Yet in recent years the tone of the event has changed from provocation to emancipation.
In 2003 the previous Gay Pride organiser, Siep de Haan, openly worried that there was too little nudity during the parade. De Haan also did not want Gay Pride promoted by the city and tourist office.
The current organizer has a different approach.
“It’s still a party. But partying and fighting for what you believe in are not mutually exclusive,” says Frank van Dalen, director of ProGay.
“At the end of the nineties we thought homosexual emancipation was a done deal. Around 2005 we came to the realisation that in fact we still had a long way to go.”
The rising violence against homosexuals played a role, says Van Dalen, and to a lesser extent the “islamisation of society”. ProGay board member Hugo Braakhuis and a friend were attacked just last week.
At the same time, a survey conducted for current affairs television programme Eén Vandaag says 65 percent of young Dutch people think the Amsterdam Gay Pride canal parade gives a distorted view of homosexuals.
The percentage is higher among homosexual youths (69 percent) than among their heterosexual contemporaries (63 percent).
Many of the young people surveyed said they found it an embarrassing display. Most also said they felt the Netherlands was, in general, a gay-friendly country. However, 40 percent felt tolerance was shrinking due to the influence of Islam, Radio Netherlands reports.
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