D66, the party that initiated a global wave of legalizing gay marriage, made itself the emblem of a day-long Dutch media craze that even extended to Dutch diplomats in London and at the UN in New York, as the Huffington Post reported.
It all started when two Dutch gay men, walking home hand in hand from their pub over the (in)famous bridge at Arnhem, were accosted by a group of youths (some of them around 14 years old), with one having four front teeth knocked out.
A Dutch journalist and lesbian activist started a Twitter campaign: straight men should walk hand in hand on the street and post a selfie of them on twitter.
The leader of D66 promptly picked up on that. We’re in the process of forming a new coalition government, and D66 will be in the tripartite “motor block” of that coalition. The coalition negotiations are held in a separate part of our monumental Binnenhof parliamentary complex, with a huddle of bored journalists outside, trying to get party leaders to tell about the negotiations. On Monday morning, D66 party leader Alexander Pechtold and Treasury spokesman Wouter Koolmees created quite a stir by arriving at the meeting walking hand in hand. News and photos of that immediately went viral, especially as the progressive GreenLeft delegation (also participating in the talks), and the VVD (NatLib) and CDA (Christian Democrats tolerating Orban among them) party leaders didn’t do the same. The CDA leader hadn’t even heard of the twitter campaign.
Proud of @APechtold @D66 for leading by example. We want a country where men can safely walk hand in hand #allemannenhandinhand pic.twitter.com/Srx9RGqmio
— Lousewies v d Laan (@LousewiesvdLaan) April 3, 2017
Other progressive Dutch politicians, dignitaries, celebrities and sportsmen popped up on twitter walking holding hands, and the Huffington Post shows that Dutch male diplomats in London and at our UN mission in New York did as well. But the photo of Alexander & Wouter became the media emblem of this trending topic. Mr. Pechtold and other D66 MP’s appeared on TV News programs and talkshows and on radio, giving us the chance to push some other D66 wishes for the upcoming Dutch government, like legalizing cannabis and a more explicit pro-EU stance by sitting (and probably continuing) VVD prime minister Mark Rutte.
Only Geert Wilders (PVV) showed bad sportsmanship by trying to pour sour grapes over this media success of his most persistent critics and enemies.
The Huffington Post remarked that all this happened around the anniversary of the Dutch gay marriage law (another D66 success in a government coalition) coming into force in 2001, just past midnight, when four gay marriages were solemnized in the council chamber of Amsterdam city hall by the Lord Mayor.
* Dr. Bernard Aris is a historian, a D66 parliamentary researcher and a LibDem supporting member.
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5 Comments
So who did the attack and how did Geert Wilders show `sour grapes`?
The lawyer for one of the accused denied that they were four Moroccans…
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Very moving image. What a terrific campaign. Hopefully there will be some women holding hands too. I wonder if D66 politicians could find a similarly powerful way to campaign against anti-Muslim or anti-Moroccan aggression? Many thanks for sharing this Bernard.
Update: this news, often accompanied by the photo of Pechtold and Koolmees (the D66 MP’s) went golbal in qualitity media:
•on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39505692 ;
•on the Guardian website: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/dutch-men-hand-in-hand-solidarity-gay-couple-attacked?CMP=share_btn_tw ;
•in the leftist Spanish El Pais newspaper: http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2017/04/05/articulo/1491378668_346151.html ;
• The German Frankfurter Allgemeine: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/niederlaendische-politiker-fassen-sich-aus-solidaritaet-an-den-haenden-14957037.html#GEPC;s3 ;
•and the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/04/06/world/europe/ap-eu-netherlands-holding-hands.html?_r=1 ;
@ James:
Wilders said it was easy to walk in the parliamentary compound, but dangerous in the multicultural low-income neighbourhoods of The Hague, Rotterdam etcetera. That may be so, but D66 is also gaining substantial votes in those areas, because D66 has been for the past 11 years firm opponent of all kind of anti-muslim populism,and proponents of firm integration policies and education possibilities .
@christopher:
that is a point of dispute between lawyers of the gay men and the lawyers of their supposed attackers. But D66 has been a gay rights advocate from the 1970’s onwards. In those days, agressors against gay and lesbian people were orthodox christians (Ian Paisley-like), so if the group of youths contained “white”, members, the D66 argument still holds.
@jemima:
see my answers above, and the D66 website: https://international.d66.nl/vote-d66/