Dutch Legalize Gay Marriage
mr_p...@my-deja.com
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 13, 2000
No Party, Protest in Dutch Gay Vote
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Neither party nor protest was held Wednesday
following the passing of groundbreaking gay rights legislation, as most in
the country seemed to shrug off the equal rights bill permitting homosexual
marriages and adoption as part of the Dutch view of modern life.
The bill was backed in a 109-33 vote in the 150-seat of the lower house
Tuesday and gay rights activists said it will create unprecedented equality
for gay couples. Staunch resistance came only from a small minority of
religious political parties.
It is set to become law next year, pending a vote in the upper house of
parliament, largely seen as a formality.
Saskia Keuzenkamp, a sociologist with a leading governmental advisory body,
said the overwhelming acceptance of the bill mirrors a real change in public
views on personal sexual preference.
``In recent years the acceptance of homosexuality here has risen sharply,
especially when compared to other countries,´´ she said.
Under Dutch law, only Dutch citizens or people with resident permits may
marry in the Netherlands, whether they are heterosexual or gay. A
European-wide survey conducted by the Socio-Cultural Planning Bureau and
presented Wednesday to Prime Minister Wim Kok, found that 76 percent of the
Dutch population considers homosexuality acceptable.
The gay marriage issue received little media attention and domestic
newspapers brushed the vote aside with brief articles.
The new law won't significantly change the daily lives of most gays after the
Registered Partnership Act was adopted in 1998, giving gay couples the same
pension, inheritance and tax benefits as heterosexuals.
Under the bill, gay couples will be free to convert that status of
``registered partnership´´ to full-fledged marriages, complete with wider
adoption rights and divorce guidelines. Adopting children overseas will
remain barred to avoid confrontations with countries that don´t allow gays to
marry.
The Dutch take the lead on other social issues besides gay rights. Officials
tolerate the use of small quantities of so-called soft-drugs such as
marijuana and hashish, allowing cafes to sell cannabis joints and a cup of
coffee. Prostitution is on open display in well-regulated red-light
districts, where scantly clad women sit like merchandise in shop windows.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
augustxxi
>
> The first nation in the world to fully sanction gay marriages:
>
> THE NEW YORK TIMES
>
> September 13, 2000
>
> No Party, Protest in Dutch Gay Vote
>
> THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Neither party nor protest was held Wednesday
> following the passing of groundbreaking gay rights legislation, as most in
> the country seemed to shrug off the equal rights bill permitting homosexual
> marriages and adoption as part of the Dutch view of modern life.
>
> The bill was backed in a 109-33 vote in the 150-seat of the lower house
> Tuesday and gay rights activists said it will create unprecedented equality
> for gay couples. Staunch resistance came only from a small minority of
> religious political parties.
>
> It is set to become law next year, pending a vote in the upper house of
> parliament, largely seen as a formality.
>
> Saskia Keuzenkamp, a sociologist with a leading governmental advisory body,
> said the overwhelming acceptance of the bill mirrors a real change in public
> views on personal sexual preference.
>
> ``In recent years the acceptance of homosexuality here has risen sharply,
[snip]
This will happen here, too - we're just backward in some ways and go
kicking and screaming into enlightenment sometimes.
Thanks for the article!
August
mr_p...@my-deja.com
<39C1723F...@wtez.net>,
augustxxi <augu...@wtez.net>
wrote:
You're welcome. I was struck about
how matter - of - fact and mature as
a society they were about the whole
thing; it barely rated a major blip
in their own news media! Of course
they have a mature attitude about
sexuality, which is a big help; they
aren't hung up on it like we are
here in the States.
I read something today in the news
about the House "possibly
considering" the inclusion of gays
in proposed hate crimes legislation.
We certainly go forward very slowly
(at least on a national level)....
Best
Greg
C.J.W.
augustxxi wrote:
>
> mr_p...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > The first nation in the world to fully sanction gay marriages:
> >
> > THE NEW YORK TIMES
> >
> > September 13, 2000
> >
> > No Party, Protest in Dutch Gay Vote
> >
> > THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Neither party nor protest was held Wednesday
> > following the passing of groundbreaking gay rights legislation, as most in
> > the country seemed to shrug off the equal rights bill permitting homosexual
> > marriages and adoption as part of the Dutch view of modern life.
> >
> > The bill was backed in a 109-33 vote in the 150-seat of the lower house
> > Tuesday and gay rights activists said it will create unprecedented equality
> > for gay couples. Staunch resistance came only from a small minority of
> > religious political parties.
> >
> > It is set to become law next year, pending a vote in the upper house of
> > parliament, largely seen as a formality.
> >
> > Saskia Keuzenkamp, a sociologist with a leading governmental advisory body,
> > said the overwhelming acceptance of the bill mirrors a real change in public
> > views on personal sexual preference.
> >
> > ``In recent years the acceptance of homosexuality here has risen sharply,
> > especially when compared to other countries,创 she said.
>
> [snip]
>
> This will happen here, too <snip>
Recent surveys indicate that young father's main goal is to spend time
with their kids, so I doubt it.
The Nordic nations in general are on the decline and already have no
respect for marriage in general. Thusly, they approve of homosexual
behavior.
--
--Christopher Watson
A rabbi listened first to one complainant and said,
"You're right," and then listened to his opponent
and said, "You're right." His wife shouted from
across the house, "They can't both be right!"
at which point the rabbi said, "You're right, too."
http://member.newsguy.com/~watt2020/Public_Life_and_Homosexuality.html
http://www.aclj.org
Dr. Charlie
"C.J.W." <watt...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> writes:
[The Netherlands legalizes Gay marriage]
>The Nordic nations in general are on the decline and already have no
>respect for marriage in general. Thusly, they approve of homosexual
>behavior.
Who gave you your geography lessons? Georgann? The Dutch ain't a Nordic
nation, dumbass.
Dr. Charlie
Gen. J.C. Christian, Christian Patriot
CJW, Very Manly Homo-Hating Patriot wrote:
> >The Nordic nations in general are on the decline and already have no
> >respect for marriage in general. Thusly, they approve of homosexual
> >behavior.
>
> Who gave you your geography lessons? Georgann? The Dutch ain't a
Nordic
> nation, dumbass.
Even with the feminization of the Nordic nations, the Dutch aren't
manly enough to join them. It all goes back to that story about the kid
putting his finger in a dyke.
--
General J C Christian
General of the Militias
Persicos odi, puer, apparatus
http://member.newsguy.com/~satire/militia.htm
mr_p...@my-deja.com
tzomp...@mindless.com (Dr. Charlie) wrote:
> In article <39C40420...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net>
> "C.J.W." <watt...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> writes:
>
> [The Netherlands legalizes Gay marriage]
>
> >respect for marriage in general. Thusly, they approve of homosexual
> >behavior.
>
> Who gave you your geography lessons? Georgann? The Dutch ain't a Nordic
> nation, dumbass.
>
LOL! Perhaps he really meant "Aryan"??
C.J.W.
> here in the States.<snip>
The facts:
"Today's lifestyle in Europe is characterised by fewer
marriages....and a high divorce
rate, according to a report published on July 12 by
Eurostat, the EU's Statistical Office in Luxembourg,
which highlights the growing trend towards a different
relationship between men and women. ....
The Eurostat report says: "In the Scandinavian
countries the lowest rates of marriage in the EEA
are associated with the highest proportion of
extra-marital births, which suggests that alternative
life-styles have been more widely adopted there". ....
[T]he percentage of babies born outside marriage continues
to increase (21.4% in the EEA and 20.0% in the EU)."
(European Report. July 18, 1994
II Economic and Monetary Affairs; No. 1967
Population: Alertnative Lifestyles Spread In Europe.)
A study of nearly 14,000 Dutch adolescents
found that children living in divorced or step-family
situations had higher rates of suicide attempts and
thought about suicide more often than children
living with both married biological parents.
(Nadia Garnefski and Rene F. W. Diekstra,
"Adolescents from One Parent, Stepparent
and Intact Families: Emotional Problems and
Suicide Attempts," Journal of Adolescence 20
(1997): 201-208.)
A study of nearly 14,000 Dutch adolescents
found that children living with a divorced parent
or in a stepfamily situation were found to
have higher levels of anxiety, loneliness and
depression and lower self-esteem than children living
with their married parents.
(Nadia Garnefski and Rene F. W.
Diekstra, "Adolescents from one parent,
stepparent and intact families: emotional
problems and suicide attempts," Journal
of Adolescence 20 (1997): 201-208.)
More on leftism:
According to a poll conducted by the Dutch government
and released September 10, 1991, Dutch physicians
now are performing two-and-one-half times
more involuntary euthanasia than voluntary.
(Cited in: "A Reason to Die: Euthanasia
Comes to Washington State," op. cit., :45)
When it's voluntary euthanasia women tend
to be killed, "The wording that is used very
often by these women is that they
don't want to be a burden..."
--Rachel MacNair, president of Feminists for Life of America.
("Kevorkian draws criticism from medical ethicists," The Washington
Times, Nov. 28, 1992.)
"1,040 people (an average of 3 per day) died from involuntary
euthanasia [in the Netherlands] meaning that doctors actively killed
these
patients without the patients' knowledge or consent." .......
"According to the Remmelink Report, Dutch physicians
deliberately and intentionally ended the lives of 11,840
people by lethal overdoses or injections--a
figure which accounts for 9.1% of the annual
overall death rate of 130,000 per year. The majority
of all euthanasia deaths in Holland are involuntary deaths.
In 45% of cases involving hospitalized patients who were involuntarily
euthanized, the patients' families had no knowledge that their
loved ones' lives were deliberately terminated by doctors. .......
In July 1992, the Dutch Pediatric Association announced that it
was issuing formal guidelines for killing severely handicapped
newborns. Dr. Zier Versluys, chairman of the association's Working
Group on Neonatal Ethics, said that "Both for the parents
and the children, an early death is better than life." Dr. Versluys
also indicated that euthanasia is an integral part of good medical
practice in relation to newborn babies. Doctors would
judge if a baby's "quality of life" is such that the baby should be
killed."
http://www.iaetf.org/fctholl.htm
".....Dr John Searle
Sir, Your leading article rightly points out that
were euthanasia lawful in this country, the senile,
the stroke patient and the old would be at risk of being killed
without their consent.
This is precisely what has happened in The Netherlands.
In 1989, the Dutch Government appointed a
commission to report on "the extent and nature of medical
euthanasia practice". This found that in a single year
(1990) 1,000 patients had had their lives terminated
without their request. So-called voluntary euthanasia had
for some people become involuntary euthanasia with
doctors deciding that it was in their best interests to end their lives.
One of the key arguments put forward to support voluntary
euthanasia is that it is necessary to prevent the intolerable
suffering of terminal illness. But The Netherlands has poorly
developed hospice services and skilled palliative care is not
widely available. As long as euthanasia is an accepted option there is
little
incentive to provide this sort of care. There has been a hospice
service in Exeter for 18 years. No patient has ever asked
for their life to be ended. Euthanasia is the
resort of doctors who are therapeutically destitute.
It is also argued that in hospitals doctors prolong the lives of those
who are at the end stage of their illness by the inappropriate
use of drugs and technology.
There are already soundly based, practical guidelines published
by the British Medical Association and other medical
bodies about withholding and withdrawing
life-prolonging treatment. If these are adhered to they
go a long way to ensuring that those who are dying may
do so with dignity and without the need to resort to a
lethal dose of drugs.
(The Times (London)
February 29, 2000, Tuesday
Features
Dutch example on euthanasia
Letter: Dr John Searle)
"The latest suggestion that The Netherlands has changed
the law so that assisted suicide is not only decriminalised
but legalised is alien to the ethos by which doctors
have been brought up. This ethos, if carefully and fearlessly
followed, should ensure a comfortable end for the great majority of
people.
The assumption that adopting a barbiturate/muscle relaxant recipe
will ensure a peaceful end seems optimistic, as well as unethical.
Barbiturates/muscle relaxants act as anaesthetic, but many a
patient, when anaesthetised, is conscious of what is going on.
A suicidal person may appear asleep but be aware
of a suffocating inability to breathe."
The Times (London)
February 26, 2000, Saturday
Home news
Final moments of old friend who 'died on end of needle'
By Dr Thomas Stuttaford)
"The Netherlands is expected to welcome the millennium
as the first state in the world to legalise euthanasia for
the terminally ill. The original bill extended the right
to death to 12-year-olds, even when parents disagreed.
But some doctors are already helping children die."
(The Daily Telegraph. London.
February 12, 1999, Friday Pg. 17
International: Amsterdam is unsafe, says Queen Beatrix
By Joan Clements in The Hague)
"Homicide rates for the Netherlands and Switzerland rose
20 percent and 13 percent respectively in 1989,
according to police figures. ..... "Our whole society is
getting more aggressive," said Commissioner Herman
Bergsma of the Central Police Intelligence Service
in Holland. "What used to end up in fistfights now
ends up in gunfights."
The number of assaults with firearms in the Netherlands
nearly doubled from 134 in 1985 to 245 last year, mainly
because of killings by drug traffickers, Bergsma said.
According to WHO statistics, the
homicide rate in this nation of 14.9
million people had been one of the world's
lowest, just above Britain and Ireland."
(The Associated Press
November 19, 1990, Monday, PM cycle
International News
Police Say Crime Increasing in Europe
By Jerome Socolovsky, Associated Press Writer
Dateline: Amsterdam, Netherlands)
"Historically, nations with liberalized drug laws have invariably
ended up with serious drug problems. The Netherlands,
with its marijuana 'coffee shops' and 'enlightened' drug policy,
is reeling under a rising epidemic of crime attributed to
drug users. Great Britain, that paradigm of clinical control of heroin,
has
experienced a virtual explosion in its addict population and related
crime."
(Times Mirror Company. Los Angeles Times
October 1, 1996, Tuesday, Home Edition
Metro; Part B; Page 6; Letters Desk
Serious Problems In Legalizing Drugs.)
"....Dutch painting of the 17th century is one of the
greatest peaks of artistic achievement in all history,
and at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam this
month there is a still-life exhibition that amply
illustrates that glorious past.
Outside the museum there is still-life of a different kind;
chronic alcoholics lie sleeping in the broad passage
between the west and south entrances to the magnificent museum.
They spread their mess and litter around them and when
they wake, they shout abuse. No one moves them on,
because to do so would be considered unacceptably
moralistic and judgmental.
To go from the streets where the crowds congregate to queue
for the exhibition is to pass from madness to sanity,
from noise to tranquillity, from ugliness to beauty,
and from barbarism - prosperous and high-tech,
but barbarism nonetheless - to civilisation.
For me, the still-life paintings provide not only the starkest
possible contrast with the new cultural identity the Dutch
have chosen for themselves - one of utter
permissiveness - but a welcome relief from it.
It isn't easy to say why, after more than three centuries, these
paintings should retain the power to move the viewer so intensely.
The pictures vary from exuberantly colourful portrayals of
bouquets of flowers, to austere depictions of items
of daily use such as plates and knives: but all the
objects painted are observed with a detail that could
emerge only from a love of, and wonderment at, the beauty of Creation.
NOTHING is taken for granted. Even the humble salt herring is
seen as an object of beauty - it was, of course, the staff of life in
Holland.
All these paintings exemplify an attitude of respect for the world,
even a religious awe of it. As the Dutch philosopher Erasmus
wrote: 'Moreover, we are twice pleased when we see a
painted flower competing with a living one.
In one we admire the artifice of Nature, in the other the genius
of the painter, in each the goodness of God.' The contrast
between this attitude and that of people attracted by the seedier
aspects of modern Amsterdam could not be greater nor more depressing.
The astonishing tawdriness and vulgarity that is now one of the
greatest tourist attractions of this city occurs in buildings that
are themselves of supreme beauty: for the Dutch domestic architecture
of the 17th and early 18th centuries has seldom been equalled and never
surpassed.
The use to which these buildings are quite openly put is a
disgraceful reflection on modern man and his utter lack
of respect for the achievements of his forefathers.
Prostitutes occupy the famous full-length windows in cubicles
that give out on to the streets, tapping on the glass with
their rings to attract the custom of the passing
crowds, who trudge mechanically by in search of some
kind of sensation that they think will satisfy them.
There seems to be an area for fat prostitutes and thin - all tastes
being
catered for. Behind the prostitutes - most of them imported
from the Third World - one can see their beds.
When a customer arrives, a heavy curtain is drawn: the glass
window and the curtain being all that separates the
copulating couple from the crowds outside.
The presence of hundreds of coffee shops where cannabis is
freely available - as well, increasingly, as hallucinogenic
mushrooms - and whose philosophy is that
individual self-indulgence is the height to which Man
can aspire, does not create a happy or even jovial atmosphere.
On the contrary, the crowds look notably glum, as if liberation
from restraint had not resulted in the expected happiness.
Indeed, such lack of restraint is not really a pleasure at all.
It is mere obedience to convention rather than a spontaneous
expression of joie de vivre - of which the
still-life paintings are so powerful and intense an example.
The Dutch were once a strait-laced people and their new-found
liberalism is no doubt a reaction to their more restrictive past.
Where once everything was forbidden, everything is permitted:
......
For example, a Dutch friend told me that during a recent
homosexual festival, men had sex in public on barges
that floated down Amsterdam's beautiful canals, and
no one intervened to stop it: first because to have done
so would have looked like prejudice against the men - the
worst of all accusations that can be laid against
anybody and second because the liberal conscience is always
seeking new taboos to break. [There is a strong sociopolitical
movement for paedophilia, but of course.]
But the modern hedonism of the Dutch has nevertheless
a distinctly puritanical air, as if, in abandoning restraint,
they are performing a sacred duty - which explains
why it is so joyless. They are proud of their liberalism - it
has become part of their national identity - and they regard
themselves as being in advance of everyone else.
Where else in the world but Amsterdam do you find a Prostitution
Information Centre that informs potential customers
of the protocol they should follow?
Founded by a former prostitute, it offers courses in both elementary
and advanced prostitution. On the walls there are photographs
of the bad old days, when prostitution was a furtive, hidden
business, a subject for blushes and evasion in polite company.
There is a photograph from the 1920s of a tobacconist's
shop that, behind its respectable facade, was a well-known brothel.
How primitive and hypocritical, we are supposed to think. Since
prostitution is, like poverty, ever with us, it is much better
that it should be out in the open.
For my part, I found the idea of the tobacconist-fronted brothel
not primitive, but a sophisticated and civilised recognition
of the need for public decorum, whatever citizens' private desires.
Of course, advocates of such openness, both about prostitution
and drug-taking, argue that it reduces the harms associated with these
activities.
Prostitution, once it is no longer something concealed and
in the shadows, but a normal business like any other,
will not be dominated by pimps - those violent, unscrupulous
men who can be seen hovering round the corner from where
I write this, while they survey the activities of their underage
streetwalkers. Similarly drugs, when a commodity like
any other, will not entail criminal activity.
THIS has turned out to be nonsense, of course. Amsterdam
is one of the most violent and crime-ridden cities in Europe.
The murder rate is higher than in London,
and even petty crime is prevalent.
Around my hotel, for example, broken bicycle locks were strewn
about the pavement. And the crime rate remains high
despite the evident prosperity and the fact
that the general level of education is very good.
It's said that the Russian Mafia has moved into the exploitation
of Dutch prostitution, and certainly there are many
prostitutes from the former Soviet empire.
A liberal attitude to vice does not turn it into virtue, or even
limit its harm: it simply spreads it. And despite the
assertion that prostitution is a trade like any other,
everyone knows in their heart that this is untrue.
Prostitutes in Amsterdam don't want their photos taken. But
why not, if what they are doing is no different from taxi-driving?
And why does one feel sorry for them that they exhibit themselves
like animals in a zoo, for the titillation of the public
and for a pittance, if what they do is fundamentally good and
honourable?
The Dutch of the 17th century understood the need for public moderation.
Some of the still-life paintings carried this message, implicitly and
explicitly.
A painting called Allegory Of Temperance shows a wine glass
flanked by a pot of water and a jug of wine. Above these
vessels hangs a horse's bridle, symbolic of
the need to limit the expression of one's appetites.
Suspended from the table on which the vessels stand,
held by the wine glass, is a piece of music, with the
following lyric: 'That which is without measure meets
immeasurable evil.' The irony is that the painter of this
picture, Johannes Torrentius, was himself famed for
his outrageous conduct: so outrageous, in fact, that he was
imprisoned, and released only on the intercession of King
Charles I, who appreciated his paintings and thought
it a pity that his talent should moulder in jail.
Of course, what Man preaches and how Man behaves have
always been very different. No denunciations of theft or
laws against stealing have ever eliminated burglary.
But no one suggests that the only possible solution to the problem
is to allow everyone to enter anywhere and take whatever
he fancies. Or that the only way of eliminating hypocrisy from
human life is to uphold no standards whatsoever.
The still-life paintings do not, therefore, suggest that the Dutch
of their golden century were an entirely virtuous people:
there is a whole genre of paintings depicting
their vices. But they do suggest that they were striving
towards something, and in the process created one
of the glories of world civilisation.
Today's Amsterdam is vulgar and trivial by contrast: it
is like a civilised city that has been occupied by barbarians.
Alas, many of those barbarians are British tourists, displaying the
kind of charmless and stupid crudity which is now, sadly,
our strongest national characteristic."
(Daily Mail (London) August 21, 1999
Pg. 20;21 A Warning From the Heart Of Sin City.
"Once They Poured Their Puritan Faith Into Glorious Works of Art.
Now With the Same Fervour, Amersterdam's
Elite are Destroying The Foundations Of Civilised Society.
Byline: Anthony Daniels)
--
--Christopher Watson
"Art, like morality, consists in
drawing the line somewhere." --G.K. Chesterton
http://member.newsguy.com/~watt2020/Public_Life_and_Homosexuality.html
http://www.aclj.org
C.J.W.
"Dr. Charlie" wrote:
>
> In article <39C40420...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net>
> "C.J.W." <watt...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> writes:
>
> [The Netherlands legalizes Gay marriage]
>
> >The Nordic nations in general are on the decline and already have no
> >respect for marriage in general. Thusly, they approve of homosexual
> >behavior.
>
> Who gave you your geography lessons? Georgann? The Dutch ain't a Nordic
> nation, dumbass.
"The landmass of the Nordic Nations is huge, extending
over 1200 miles from North to South, from inside
the Artic Circle to the base of the Jutland Peninsula. It not
only includes the countries of Norway, Sweden,
Finland and Denmark but also Northern Germany,
Poland, Russia and Lapland: all of the land mass
boarding on the Baltic Sea, North Sea, Gulf of
Bothnia, eastern North Atlantic, and the Gulf
of Finland. Countries that are dominated by
water and were controlled or ruled by the
Vikings for centuries. .....braces were
produced and used throughout the Nordic
area. This appears to have been
especially true in the Netherlands."
http://www.mwtca.org/otc/ar000016.htm
Die Behauptungen über die nordischen Nationen stehen, Kind.
Bushman
C.J.W. <watt...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:39C54DB3...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net...
Nordic adj 1: of or relating to or constituting the Scandinavian group of
languages; "Nordic languages have a gender system" [syn: Nordic] 2: relating
to Germany and Scandinavia; "Hitler wanted Nordic people to rule Europe"
[syn: Nordic] 3: resembling peoples of Scandinavia n : the northern family
of Germanic languages that are spoken in Scandinavia and Iceland [syn:
Scandinavian, Scandinavian language, Nordic, Norse, North Germanic, North
Germanic language]
Bushman
Dr. Charlie
Don't bother, Bushman. Did you check out the website? It's from the Mid-West
Tool Collectors Association! "Nordic Nations" is a very poorly
thought-out shorthand term the author is using for the geographic zone in
which ancient Norse artifacts can be found. According to that definition, and
thanks to the Varangian guard, I suppose that could mean that the vicinity of
Istanbul is also a "Nordic Nation" (sic)!
The cite was, however, a fascinating insight into just how stupid and
dishonest Watson is.
Dr. Charlie
Is flattered that Watson tried to show off to me how smart he is by
insulting me in German.
Bushman
Yeah, I saw it. I posted the definition because, for a moment, I forgot he
was uninformed instead of dishonest. I assumed his geography mirrored his
other concepts.
Bushman
>