Minister Donner is quite right that it is wrong to preventively ban political parties who aim to introduce sharia law by democratic means. He is also quite right that there is no need for non-Muslims to do so. With all the constitutional changes involved, such a Muslim fundamentalist party would need 66% of the vote.

He’s not the silly one in this debate.

Against this model of tolerance one has the recurrent Calvinist aspiration to purity and righteousness, the boast (always cloaked in mock-modest irony) that the Netherlands is a land whose prosperity is Heaven’s reward for its moral excellence. In its modern version, health statistics are put forward: the fewest teen pregnancies, the lowest childhood mortality, the tallest people, the most densely populated country in the world – or pure moral claims: we are the most tolerant toward gays.

These boasts are often true; it’s a wonderful country. But as reformers from the Counter-remonstrants on have found, it is dangerous to push one’s luck in terms of universal acceptance of one’s own vision of moral truth. It seems unwise to attempt to actively force a queer-friendly ideology on that minority of Dutch citizens who still don’t feel exactly the same towards gays as they do towards straights. It’s a good idea to know when you’ve won.

Well, except atheists.

However, I also think that the case of adopting is more complex than e.g. the disapproval that some people feel in seeing a gay couple kiss. The reason is that some people (probably those 34% and possibly more) think that it is in the best interest of children to be raised by a different-sex couple (as far as I know, there is no scientific evidence for this view). Another issues that may be relevant here is that some countries in the global South refuse to cooperate in international adoptions with countries that allow adoptions by gay couples.

At the same time, 34% strongly disagree that same sex couples should have the same adoption rights as hetero couples. The questions about adoption/children and gay teachers for children of hetero couples get much closer to the real feelings of acceptance for homosexuals.

If you don’t disapprove, how can you even be intolerant?

The occasional rainbow flag tends to enforce tolerance, and the townspeople have, to a considerable degree, adopted the cosmopolitan liberalism this implies. Most of our mommies still drive SUV’s to pick up their kids from middle school – we’re a very conventional, very affluent community in most respects – but the polyglot visitors go unconfronted, the turbanned Sikh and the lady in the hijab alike stroll the boardwalk unafraid.

If a place is safe for gays, it’s probably safe for anyone.

Leederick, you raise an important question. If all people would accept gays and treat them genuinly as equals, that would be a milestone. But I wonder whether this would still lead to implicit behaviour (e.g. how you talk to people, whether you avoid them, etc.) that would send the message to gay people that they are not treated with full respect. Hence I would advocate reaching the ‘good liberal tolerance limit’ as a minimum, but hoping for a society where people also genuinly do accept gays as just another human being, without conveying them in subtle ways that they are ‘different’, e.g. by making ‘jokes’.

Is there a simple relationship between tolerance/intolerance and ‘negative’ attitudes towards gays, ‘dislike having gay neighbours’, ‘believing that homosexuality can never be justified’, finding gay people kissing ‘offensive’ and so on? Isn’t it perfectly possible for you be a good tolerant liberal and hold all the views above?

I suppose there’s a broader issue around exactly how much we can ask of people. I remember reading a comment from someone (I forget who) about how there are two forms of multiculturalism. One says different ways of life are equally valid, so we should be tolerant of others ways of life as they have equal value to our own. The other says people who have different ways of life are deeply misguided, but we should let them get on with it out of a spirit of benevolent superiority. Should we try to get people to sign up to the first view rather than the second?

link

“In 2002, an EKOS Research poll showed that if there was a national referendum on the issue, either side could win: 47% would vote to oppose same-sex marriage, while 45% would vote in favour.

The most recent public opinion poll on same-sex marriages became available on June 19th, 2006. The poll, conducted by Environics Research, showed that support for the law increased, as Canadians accept gay marriage by a 59-33 majority.

An Environics poll taken in January of 2005, showed the majority favoured the law, but by a tighter margin: 54-43.

An Environics poll taken in January, 2006, showed a margin of 66-30 against reopening the debate. Thus, although opposition to reopening the debate fell by 4 points, support for raising it again fell by 3. Finally, only a slim majority of conservative voters felt the issue should be reopened. Strong opponents have fallen from 46% per cent to 35%.

Another poll on same-sex marriage was released one week earlier. This poll, conducted by Leger Marketing, was only conducted within the provice of Ontario. Out of 1,000 respondents, 49% supported same-sex marriage, and 40% were opposed. 11% provided tacit support by volunteering an “it’s none of my business/i don’t care” response, thus bringing support for gay marriage up to 60% in the province.”

78% support for gay marriage beats almost anywhere else, although I think Canada’s veering into that terriroty pretty fast. Friends and family members of mine who used to oppose gay marriage are now nearly all at the very least resigned to it. In general they seem to be seeing that the worst predictions were totally false, and that gay marriage is massively harmless.

I suspect that once gay marriage gets legalized in a country, and the sky fails to fall, opinon turns pretty fast.