Gangs of floating homos invaded Amsterdam's famed canals for the gay pride drift this weekend:

Organisers of Amsterdam's 13th annual Gay Pride festival which ended on Sunday said the annual canal parade on Saturday drew a record crowd of more than 500,000… According to the paper, "80 boats full of partying homosexuals" took part, including a police boat and a government boat…

Uniformed seamen also took part, a first.

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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's what Dutch politico Paul van Grieken said when legalizing public gay sex in Amsterdam. Van Grieken argues that since gay men are going to have sex in the park regardless, the city should try to enforce some "strict rules".

Why should we try to impose something that is actually impossible to impose, which also causes little bother for others and for a certain group actually means much pleasure?
…
Condoms must always be cleared away, it must never take place in the neighbourhood of children's playgrounds and the sex must be restricted to the evening and night-time.

Some Amsterdam residents are infuriated not necessarily because of the new leniency, but because the city's council will now impose stricter regulations on unleashed dogs.

This is a very interesting ruling for multiple reasons. First, it's realistic, which is rare when it comes to sexual policing. More importantly, however, van Grieken's measure grants a certain legitimacy to cruising, which may help eradicate taboos and their resulting unsafe practices. It will be intriguing to find whether this legitimacy, however, will hamper some of the public sex excitement.

Amsterdam's worrisome anti-gay hate crime rates are sparking an equally worrisome study:

Mayor Job Cohen commissioned the University of Amsterdam to conduct a study on the motives behind the hate crimes. Half of the crimes were committed by men of Moroccan origin and researchers believe they felt stigmatized by society and responded by attacking people they felt were lower on the social ladder. Another working theory is that the attackers may be struggling with their own sexual identity.

While we're all about Amsterdam trying to curb anti-queer attacks, this study seems a bit short sighted. Wouldn't it be better to educate people, rather than rationalize their actions into objectivity?

Two Canadian soldiers who beat up a gay man will be serving time in prison rather than Afghanistan:

Eric Wright was sentenced to five months in jail and ordered to pay 6,000 euros ($8,500) in damages and Ryan Dowie was given 45 days in jail, a court spokesman told AFP.

The two men, both aged 22 at the time of the incident, were arrested following a brawl in May in which a 28 year-old gay man was hospitalised with serious injuries.

The victim claimed he was attacked after the soldiers had asked him whether he was gay but the court found insufficient evidence proving this.

Well, at least they asked before making an ass out of you and me. They did, however, make an ass out of themselves, their army and basic human values.

We've previously reported on two Canadian soldiers accused of anti-gay attacks in Amsterdam. Canada's National Post provides more details:

The two soldiers, on leave from the mission in Afghanistan, were arrested on May 26 by Dutch police after an altercation in Amsterdam, a Canadian Defense department official confirmed.

The men were originally charged with attempted manslaughter, attempted criminal negligence causing bodily harm and public violence but there have been ongoing discussions to reduce those charges. The charges are under the Dutch criminal code and do not have an equivalent under the Canadian legal system, military officials said.

Rather than give them the boot, the Canadian military simply reassigned them to a base in The Netherlands.

Anne Frank may not have been gay, but she was persecuted by the anti-gay Nazis, so she's kind of an ally, right?

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Dutch news sources say public prosecutors have their eyes on two allegedly violent Canadian soldiers:

The public prosecution department has asked the courts to jail a 22-year-old Canadian soldier for eight months for beating up a homosexual man in Amsterdam this spring. A second soldier, also 22, faces a six-week sentence. The attack sent out alarm signals about increasing violence against gay people.

We guess not all of Amsterdam's anti-gay attacks are instigated by Muslim immigrants, as some would like to believe.

(PS: Are we the only ones who thinks eight and six month sentences are a bit lenient?)

The Netherlands' faglings just got a new playground. Amsterdam-based activist group COC just launched an under-16 website to help the young pups come up in the gay world.

The kid-initiated initiative came around after this year's gay pride, when the Tiger Beat crowd joined the fun with a float of their own, reports NIS. Since then, COC and a group of go-getter guppies have been collaborating on the new networking site, Jung & Out.

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Spurred by a sharp rise in anti-gay attacks, the city's crime stoppers are mulling new, covert methods of curbing homo-haters:

The Amsterdam police are considering sending undercover officers posing as homosexual men onto the streets of the capital in an effort to combat increasing aggression against gays. The chief of Amsterdam police Bernard Welten said this in an interview that appears in the Gay Krant on Friday.

"But only as an extreme measure, and only if victims have become much more willing to report incidents than they are now," Welten added.

There have been 21 reported attacks this year alone, higher than all of last year's incidents. Does this mean there are more anti-gay attacks? Not necessarily.

It does mean, however, that more people are coming forward. It also means more arrests: coppers have nabbed a dozen alleged bashers. Not a perfect record, no, but a step in the right direction.

Gay men, women and teens took to Amsterdam's famed canals this weekend for the city's gay pride. About seventy decorated dinghies went down the water as thousands celebrated queer carte blanche. Expatica reports:

The flotilla and party afterward is one of the biggest of the year in Amsterdam, and one in which the city upholds its reputation as one of Europe's gayest capitals. DJs pump music from ships packed with dancing partygoers, vying for who can put on the best show or provide the most outrageous theme.

In addition to drag queens and would-be divas, Amsterdam's pride also saw its first straight float, created in solidarity with The Netherland's nancies, a particularly powerful message considering Amsterdam's recent spate of anti-gay hate crimes, including a trio of actions over the weekend.

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A gay man in Amsterdam has suffered a "complete mental breakdown" after being assaulted by three teenagers Thursday night.

The man - known only as Alexander - had been walking back from his boyfriend's mother's house when three teenagers - who he identified as Moroccan - pushed him into the water at Rembrandt Park. The youths then spent three hours throwing sticks, stones and words as they forced Alexander to do laps. Alexander's boyfriend recalls:

He was scared to death, he heard the three talking to each other in Arabic and thought they planned to do the worst to him. Alexander feels he must have been swimming around in the pond for about two hours before a car with bright headlights arrived at the scene. The boys got scared and ran off.

Police are looking into the matter, but are unsure whether the boys targeted Alexander because he's gay or just because they're wet noodles.

Now this is an interesting report, especially for these morning hours: HIV researchers at Amersterdam's Academic Medical Center have found evidence suggesting that lactoferrin, a protein found in cow milk, may hinder HIV's parasitic abilities.

As we're sure many of you know, HIV acts by attaching itself to human dendritic cells, disguising itself and wreaking havoc on the immune system before it's even detectable. Lactoferrin, it seems, also attaches to dendritic receptors, thus blocking HIV's nefarious grip.

365 Gay elaborates:

The defense systems, called dendritic cells normally block any germs or virus and send them to the lymph glands. But when HIV is sent to the lymph glands it begins to break down the immune system.

Groot and the other researchers have found that lactoferrin is able to attach itself to the receptors on the dendritic cells as does the HIV-virus. It then renders the virus powerless.

Goot also told the network that Lactoferrin also is a very strong HIV-growth inhibitor, so even if the virus somehow escapes, it will have a hard time duplicating itself.

Of course, this doesn't mean that your daily glass of the white stuff (milk, you pervs) will protect you from HIV. The scientists are quick to point out that stomach acid will render the lactroferrin…well, dead.

If, however, pharmaceutical companies can harness the bovine protein's potential, they may be able to make cheaper, more effective and widely available drugs.

And, you know, the pharmies are all about making things cheap and widely available.

(Also, can we just say how wonderful would be if milk held the key to stopping HIV? Aside from all the lives that would be saved, there's a message in there somewhere, it's just too early for us to work it out…)

• A Nobel Prize-nominated South African AIDS advocacy organization was first not invited, then invited, now refuses to attend the United Nations Special Session on AIDS as an act of protest. [365 Gay]

• At least one elected official is looking out for the gays, even if he is in The Netherlands. Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam sent out a written slap on the wrist to the heads of several homophobic European governments telling them to uphold the universal declaration of human rights. [Pink News]

• 72 percent of Americans would hypothetically vote for hypothetical gay candidates as long as they hypothetically agreed on the hypothetical issues. Gay activists are hypothetically excited. [Washington Blade]

• Supporters of the anti-gay-marriage amendment in Minnesota refuse to disclose all the money pouring into their campaign. Could this be because their sources are pure evil? That is just one idea. [Star Tribune]