Dutch Gay News August 24 1995



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Gay Sports Organisations Go On The Internet

THE HAGUE. The Dutch organisation for gay Sportsmen and sportswomen GISAH (Gay Integration Through Sports and Activities Holland) and the EGLSF (European Gay & Lesbian Sports Federation) announced this week that if all goes according to plan their shared homepage will be ready by the 1st of september. At the moment a testpage is shown consisting of the logo's of the two organisations. Via their WWW-pages GISAH and EGLSF plan to give information on Gay sports in Europe and the Netherlands such as contacts for various sports and events, information on next year's Eurogames in Berlin, an updated list of European gay sports tournaments and much more. Last june GISAH for the seventh consecutive year organised a gay sports weekend in The Hague which atracted some 700 gay and lesbian sportspersons from 8 different European countries. Information on GISAH and the EGLSF can be found on: http://www.bart.nl/~fabistas/

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Gay Capital Of Europe ?

AMSTERDAM. Ever since the popular mayor of Amsterdam Ed van Thijn, who took up a cabinet post, was replaced by Schelto Patijn (a city mayor in Holland is not elected but appointed by the minister for internal affairs) several controversies affecting the Amsterdam gay community that had been simmering for some years suddenly seem to come out into the open. First there was the formation of a council for greater Amsterdam (the so-called "Stadsprovincie"), divided into local councils. Strongly supported by a majority of Amsterdam city councilmembers and Mayor-to-be of greater Amsterdam, Mr. Patijn, it turned out that responsibility for gay policy-making would be transferred permanently to local councils. A report published last winter however showed that in most of the 16 local councils political attention for gay issues had deteriorated over the past 10 years and a policy on gay rights and emancipation was either a low priority or non-existent. In a reaction the Amsterdam chapter of the COC informally advised its members to vote against the formation of the "stadsprovincie". The proposal, which was heavily criticised by other organisations as well, was eventually defeated in a referendum with over 80% of Amsterdammers rejecting the idea. Controversies are also emerging around the largest cruising area in Amsterdam the "Nieuwe Meer", where cruising started on a piece of wasteland over 15 years ago. After having been ignored by politicians for years and only after the Japanes NISSAN corporation built an office-block near-by overlooking the area, the local council of Sloter vaart-Overtoomseveld a few years ago started making plans to develop the area for recreation. This meant the digging of ditches around the area (making it less accessible for cruising gays) and building a cycle-track through the middle of the area (making it more accessible to teenagers with bikes), measures which have already been carried out and which are blamed for an increase in reports of anti-gay behaviour. The situation led to several critical articles and editorials in the Amsterdam-based gay "Out on the Streets"-newspaper(*), which among others quoted an anonymous source within city hall saying that mayor Patijn felt it was not his job to "help a bunch of men to have sex in public". The articles in turn led to accusations of "gutter journalism" from a rival gay newspaper. An invitation to Mr. Patijn for an interview from Amsterdam-based and well established local gay radiostation MVS last week was after initially agreeing later turned down by city hall. Although formally speaking mr. Patijn is not responsible for Amsterdam's policy on gay issues the interview would have been an opportunity for Mr. Patijn and the gay community to get to know each other and maybe resolve some of the problems between Amsterdam's policy-makers and the gay community which is, as many feel, already long overdue. (*) "Out on the streets"(see above) is a a bi-lingual (Dutch/English) volunteer-run gay newspaper published every two weeks in Amsterdam containing news, views, editorials, classifieds, stories and lots of information concerning the Amsterdam gay community. "Out on the Streets" can be picked up free of charge in gay venues in Amsterdam and London. For more information "Out on the streets" can be contacted at: Out on the Streets, Rozenstraat 8, NL-1016 NX Amsterdam, the Netherlands, phone: int-31-20-6233850, fax: int-31-20-6232870.

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