The acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands is growing. Religious Protestants and Muslims have the most difficulty with it. Looking at political preference, PVV voters in particular are negative towards gays.
Those are some of the findings from a report of the SCP (Institute for Social Research) about the acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands. The study, conducted for former minister Ronald Plasterk (Emancipation), was presented Thursday. In 2008, says the SCP, 9% of the people had a negative attitude towards homosexuality, compared to 15% in 2006.
This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog - islamineurope.blogspot.com
The report devotes considerable attention to religious and ethnic minorities. In addition there's a separate SCP publication about homosexuality in Protestant Netherlands. Homosexuality is a very sensitive here here, but in religious-Protestant and, to a lesser degree, in "bevindelijk" Reformed circles, there are, according to the SCP, 'careful positive changes relating to homosexuality'. Among Evangelical Christians, gay-emancipation is impeded, because many there don't accept homosexuality as a given, says the report.
Among the immigrant Dutch, half see homosexuality as a lack of respect and loyalty to the family. Moroccan, Turkish, Chinese and, to a lesser degree, also Surinamese gays sometimes don't out themselves, because they would then cause disrepute to the whole family.
The SCP also checked the relationship between political preferences and gay-acceptance. A negative gay attitude is most common among PVV voters (11%), followed by CDA (9%), and the VVD (5%).
Supporters of GroenLinks (Greens) and the SP (Socialists) are the least negative towards homosexuality. The data for small parties such as the ChristianUnion and SGP (religious Christians) aren't known, since there were too few supporters in the test sample. There does seem to be a correlation to belonging to a church. The SCP says that of those who go to a church every week, 34% have a negative attitude towards homosexuality, compared to 4% among those who don't belong to a church.
Source: Nederlands Dagblad (Dutch)
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