Dutch anti-discrimination law - (Sample case)

Radio Netherlands ^ | Rob Greene

[Int]

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I know I should perhaps tell you what I feel about Sharon and Arafat and Jenin and Ramallah and the Church of the Nativity and suicide bombings and Israel's war against terrorism but I'm so heartily sick of the whole matter that I wish it would all just go away. Suffice it to say that, with the involvement of the United States and, to a lesser extent, the European Union, that dreaded monstrosity The Even-Handed Approach has reared its head again. And so we have George Bush being an eentsie bit annoyed with Sharon, but also a tad disenchanted with Arafat. From such a position of carefully balanced disinterest no problem-solving action ever resulted. As Bush himself will tell you: the civilized world's greatest recent achievements –the liberation of the Kuwaiti royals, the creation of a Greater Albania in all but name, the surrender by Libya of two innocent agents, the jailing of  Latin America's baddest, Wagner-lovingest drugs dealing president and the ousting of the odious Taliban (though not the arrest of Bin Laden)- didn't come about through genteel pussyfooting around, but by kicking butt. So, Dubya, this is what you do. Tell this guy Sharon that if he and his settler cronies don't vacate the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pronto, so you can establish a cohesive, free, viable Palestinian state to sit peacefully side by side with Israël, you'll bust his ass. And remember: this crisis didn't start with the recent wave of suicide bombings. It didn't even start with Sharon's callous provocation on Temple Mount or the collapse of the Camp David talks between Arafat and Barak. It started –and I'm surprised you seem to have forgotten this- with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by one of his own countrymen. Jews and Palestinians have never been closer to picking the flowers of peace and harmony than they were the day before that dreadful event. Ask yourself: who in Israel hated the idea of peace and harmony so much that they were willing to murder the best statesman they ever had? Had he been allowed to live, how different the situation might be today! Right. Enough. I'm here to talk of something else. This is purely hypothetical, of course, but if I appeared on your national TV and said 'Homosexuality is a pernicious disease that is destroying the fabric of your country', would I get away with it? Not likely, I'm sure that in most countries with a claim to civilization I'd be sued for defamation by every gay organization in the land and prosecuted and convicted under their anti-discrimination laws. The days when gays were fair game and it was OK to slag them off are fortunately long past. As, of course, they are in The Netherlands.  This country prides itself on being in the very vanguard of gay emancipation and won't tolerate anything that smacks of discrimination, ridicule or insult. The closets of The Netherlands contain nothing more interesting than a few brooms and ironing boards. Why, Pim Fortuyn, currently the brightest spark in the Dutch political tinder box, is a gay man and proud of it. Nor has it done anything at all to harm his electoral prospects. No, Holland is, in the gay perception, A Very Nice Place Indeed and no-one here would dream of saying that homosexuality is a pernicious disease, etc. etc. No-one, that is, except the Imam El Moumni, spiritual leader of the Nasr Mosque in Rotterdam. He actually said precisely that, in a TV programme some months ago. He wisely added that, in spite of the hideous danger that gays obviously pose to society, it would not be right to beat them up or incite hatred against them. But that didn't do him much good. He was promptly prosecuted under Dutch anti-discrimination law and faced a possible fine of 1200 euro. Open and shut case, the Dutch thought, that'll teach him. Earlier this week, the Imam was acquitted. Yes, said the judge at the Rotterdam court, El Moumni had said what he said, yes it might, in other circumstances, be seen as discrimination and expose him to the full force of the law. But since the spiritual leader had based his remark on the Koran and other holy scriptures he had done no more than exercise his freedom of religion. Freedom of religion, I scarcely need to tell you, is if anything even more sacred in this country than the rights of homosexuals. That's the price you pay for having an independent judiciary: any magistrate can turn his courtroom into a theatre of the absurd and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. Absurd too strong a word for you? Then just picture this: I'm sitting next to the Imam on the TV show in question. He makes his remark about homosexuality and then the camera pans round to me. 'I happen to be an agnostic', I say with a smile, 'but I agree with the Imam on that one.' A few weeks later the Imam is acquitted. I, on the other hand, am made to pay 1200 Euro. No holy scriptures to fall back on, you see. Funny old world…

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[Restorer]

This is purely hypothetical, of course, but if I appeared on your national TV and said 'Homosexuality is a pernicious disease that is destroying the fabric of your country', would I get away with it? Not likely, I'm sure that in most countries with a claim to civilization I'd be sued for defamation by every gay organization in the land and prosecuted and convicted under their anti-discrimination laws. The days when gays were fair game and it was OK to slag them off are fortunately long past.

Very funny. This idiot obviously doesn't understand the concept of 1st Amendment. He would be perfectly free to do this in America, as Americans do every day. We may not agree with those who say such things, but they have every right to say them (for now).

Getting rid of the right to make such statements is exactly what the whole concept of "hate crimes" is intended to work up to.

Oh well. (Hanging head in shame.) I guess America has no claim to being civilized.

[arielb]

If I said "Arafat is a pernicious disease that is destroying the fabric of your country" in the Palestinian Authority, I wouldn't be forced to pay a fine. I would be killed.