Dutch gay activists need to stay out of Amsterdam’s cafes. Gay group COC wants prosecutors to pen a law barring known homophobes from entering so-called gay areas.
The call comes after a surge – four in one week – of anti-gay assaults, attacks reportedly carried out by Moroccan immigrants (a common theme, as we have seen). In addition to asking victims to report their attacks, COC also petitioned Public Prosecutor Chief Harm Brouwer to ensure convicts are barred from entering gay ghettos. Sure, it’s a valid concern, but a bit short-sighted – and perhaps racist.
Yes, you can write up laws preventing an anti-gay from so-called gay neighborhoods, but it’s not as if gays only live in these queer quarters.
Contrary to what some believe – or would like to believe – we gays stalk each and every street of this great world. What does COC want, some space colony on the moon, or something? Or, better yet, a rocket into the sun?
Further, COC chairman Frank van Dalen claims Moroccan immigrants go out on the town looking for a fag to flog. Four of the suspects in last weeks attacks are Moroccan nationals. The prospect of a law banning anti-gays from “gayborhoods” opens a nice big can of racial profiling, which may only perpetuate tensions between Moroccans and gays.
How about we take this to the next level?
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COC would be better served holding a meeting with Moroccan community leaders – you know, have tea, cookies and work it all out. Then they can hold hands and skip down the road to the cafe, which they can enjoy together. What a wonderful world it would be…
Bryan
The Netherlands is a beautiful land of live and let live. This way of life has served them well for a very very long time. When you go there, especially as a metropolitan homo, it feels like a paradise.
Recently the huge numbers of muslim –specifically Moroccan– immigrants (brought in as cheap temporary labor, but decided they wanted to stay) has started to challenge that ideology. How do you live in a free society when one people’s beliefs are incompatible with those of another?
It’s a common theme across Europe right now, specifically in France and The Netherlands. Americans are unique in that we have been dealing with this for centuries.
janstapel
The issue at hand is an injunction against the homophobes, not a law baring people of color from entering the gay areas.
Looks like a reasonable precaustion to me.
Does anybody know what happened to Ali Baba in Amsterdam, the first gay bar catering to gay arabs?
homosaywhat
The racism in the action is that 1, the people who generally make these arguments (foreigners are changing our country) are just feeding off of a few incidents to serve their further racist goals. They don’t give a fuck about queers–n.b. conservative Dutch politicians who fought fervently to keep marriage from being extended to same-sex couples now are trying to keep muslims out by using acceptance of same-sex marriage as a cultural pre-requisite for getting visas and citizenship. I re-itterate, they don’t give a fuck about queers. 2, in practice a law like this would probably focus on people who might have cultural aversions to homosexuality… like religion. You clearly can’t pick out a Christian fundamentalist from a white crowd, but, hey, you can guess that the few brown people might be muslims!
Not a real solution, just creates further problems.