DANNY'S BOAT-- UNDER-16 DUTCH GAY YOUTH WIN IMPORTANT VICTORY

I wrote the following article for Gay City News -- New York's largest gay weekly -- and it appears in the current issue:

Netherlands gay youth under the legal age of consent of 16 won a significant victory  last week when Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen (RIGHT) finally gave his approval to a special boat for such youngsters in the annual Canal Pride gay boat parade through the city center's famous waterway, an event that needs a city permit to take place.

The mayor, from the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, or Dutch Labor Party), had initially refused permission for the youth boat, according to the national daily newspaper De Volkskrant, expressing doubts about involving "that vulnerable group" in the annual procession. But Cohen changed his mind after meeting with Frank van Dalen (LEFT), the chairman of COC The Netherlands, the world's oldest LGBT group, founded in 1946.

The special homojongerenboot, or homo youngsters boat, in the traditionally colorful and festive Canal Pride boat parade - to be held this year on August 4 during three days of Pride celebrations and events - will be reserved for youth between the ages of 12 and 16, according to the Dutch national news agency ANP, and the youngsters will be accompanied on the boat by their parents.

The initiative for the boat for underage youngsters came from 14-year-old Danny  Hoekzema (RIGHT), a gay youth who campaigned for the idea on his personal Web site.

"My goal with this boat is to get more activities for gay and lesbian teens all over the county," he told Gay City News in an extensive interview conducted by e-mail.

Danny said he has received an avalanche of hundreds of e-mails supporting him.

"Dozens of teens my age send me mails saying they agree with me that there are not enough activities specifically for our age group, " he said, adding: "Some 30 of them have already enlisted to join me on the teen boat. Others write that they support my initiative, but they still don't dare to come out. They hope things will change because of the attention and the growing understanding for gay teens now. That will help them to come out. A mother of a gay teen of 12 wrote me her son has come out because of my initiative. Both will participate on the boat in August." (To read excerpts from these e-mails to Danny, click here.)

Danny told this reporter he has the complete support of his parents for what he is doing.

"I came out 21 months ago when I was 12 years old. I'm just 14 now. I told my parents by letter that I put on their pillow in the bedroom. The next morning they woke me at 8 o'clock. Then we had a really good talk about it. My mother works as a sales manager for a newspaper and my dad is a bookkeeper. They responded really well when I told them about my initiative for the teen boat at the Canal Parade. They support me and will be joining me on the boat. Isn't that great?"

Danny noted that, "All sorts of people who want to show their support send me mails. Like older gay men who remember the times when they were my age. They also knew they were gay at my age, but they were lonely and knew nobody like themselves. And straight people are mailing me as well. They think it's really a cool idea and want to encourage me to go forward with it. The need for activities for gay and lesbian teens is real. People are talking about it now - finally. I'm sure that makes a difference."

Of the 30 other under-16 adolescents who have signed on to join the teen boat, the youngest is 12, said COC's van Dalen, and the average age is 14. Told that so many of these youngsters want to join the Pride parade through the canals, "The mayor even said, 'We need a bigger boatr,'" van Dalen told me in describing his successful meeting with Cohen.

But the victory for Danny and his boat came only after a media feeding frenzy over allegations of pedophilia from a controversial figure in the Amsterdam gay community, charges that brought a series of death threats to an internationally known gay academic.

The background to the firestorm over pedophilia is an ongoing fight for control of the Canal Pride event. From 1996 to 2005, Canal Pride and the other Pride celebrations were organized by Amsterdam's Gay Business Association (BGA), headed by Siep de Haan. But there was growing dissatisfaction with de Haan's leadership, and allegations of financial malfeasance. (LEFT, CANAL PRIDE 2006)

Last year, the Dutch magazine Gay News, which has been in existence since 1992, reported: "The Amsterdam businesses seem to have finally had their fill with Siep de Haan. They complain that they have to pay the GBA 475 euros per beer tap while the licenses are only 35 euros at City Hall. More and more people wonder what happens with all the money that's going into the GBA. Especially since the people who organize the street parties cover all the production costs. They don't cost the GBA a cent! Never did the GBA give a satisfying account for all the financial transactions. As Peter Kramer, the boyfriend of Siep de Haan, is the treasurer of the foundation, people are getting suspicious."

"This year, our Gay Pride will cost some 200,000 Euros [roughly $260,000], whereas de Haan, who had a lot fewer events, claimed his budget was three times higher - where did the extra money go?" van Dalen told me, adding, "A lot of bar owners paid him a lot of money, because he told them - If you want to have a street party, you have to pay me. We believe he put the money in his pocket."

De Haan did not reply to an e-mail from this reporter requesting his response to the charges.

These allegations caused City Hall to withdraw its permit for the Pride events from de Haan's group last year and give it to a new sponsoring organization, Pro Gay, in which COC is a participant.

Against this background, de Haan - on learning of the plans for the under-age youngsters' boat - several weeks ago began a campaign to undermine Pro Gay's and COC's sponsorship of the Pride events with charges of pedophilia, according to articles in the Dutch press and accounts given this reporter by local gay activists.

And he chose to do so by singling out Gert Hekma (LEFT), an internationally known gay academic who is a lecturer in Gay and Lesbian Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Since de Haan began his campaign, Hekma has become the target of multiple death threats.

Hekma, 55, the author, editor, or co-editor of 16 scholarly books on gay studies - a number of them available in English - has written extensively on pedophilia in articles for scholarly journals. The prize-winning British historian and Auden biographer Richard Davenport-Hines - reviewing "Gay Life and Culture: A World History," the monumental essay collection published last year and edited by Professor Robert Aldrich of the University of Sydney, to which Hekma was a contributor - wrote: "Gert Hekma bravely utters some unsayable truths - 'in general young people suffer no negative consequences from intergenerational sex unless it happens inside the family or unless violence is used against them' - and intelligently contextualizes the prevalent Western hysteria about the sexual abuse of children."

In explaining the origins of the controversy, Hekma me by telephone, "City Hall wanted to get rid of de Haan and broaden the Pride from drinking and dancing to include cultural, sporting, and academic events."

Hekma's name was one of those on the original application for the permit for Pride, and so his name appeared in early press accounts of the planned boat for under-age youth, even though he was not involved with it.

De Haan then sent a number of journalists quotes from a 2004 interview Hekma had given to Martijn, a pedophile magazine.

"In that interview," Hekma told me, "which was occasioned by the publication of my book 'Homosexuality in the Netherlands from 1730 to Modern Times,' I was untactical, as people would later reproach me, in my expressions. I said that the heteronormative culture opposes sex for the young with so much force, while at the same time we force the young to do other things that are good for them, like going to school, learning how to eat or to swim, etc. And, as I was writing an essay on [the Marquis de] Sade at the time, I invoked Sade and said that it might be a good idea to forcibly bring children to sex. I was being ironic, and perhaps a bit outrageous. What I meant, and should have said more clearly, was that instead of using force to prevent the sexual development of youth, it would be much better to do the opposite and spur them to become self-conscious sexual citizens."

Then, Hekma said, the more sensational and conservative elements of the Dutch press, and even some radio and TV stations, "began quoting me as saying 'we should force children to have sex' with no context, and referring to me as a 'defender of pedophiles.' When I was interviewed, I explained that it is normal for an academic to touch on all topics, in particular difficult themes like pedophilia - this I have done throughout my work."

In fact, Hekma's academic views are not dissimilar from those of Judith Levine's controversial book "Harmful to Minors: the Perils of Protecting Children from Sex" (University of Minnesota Press), which carried a forward from former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, and in which the author wrote: "The threat of pedophilia and molestation is exaggerated by adults, who want to deny young people the opportunity for positive sexual experiences."

"America's drive to protect kids from sex is protecting them from nothing ...Instead, often it is harming them," she also wrote.

As well, hitting on the theme that Davenport-Hines attributed to Hekma, Levine wrote, "The research shows us that in some minority of cases, young, even quite young, people can have a positive [sexual] experience with an adult."

In discussing de Haan's public efforts to sabotage the Pride celebration, Hekma told this reporter, "The main line in the commotion here was the idea that this boat had something to do with pedophiles, and I was supposedly the main transfer point from the boat to the pedophiles."

But, Hekma said, "I had nothing to do with the youngsters' boat, and the youngsters' boat had nothing to do with pedophilia. What pedophile would come to a boat that was surrounded by media and parents? And these youngsters would have absolutely no reason to be interested in such a man at that moment."

COC's van Dalen told me, "Nobody in the community wants to work anymore with Siep de Haan, who is always trying to create trouble and attract attention to himself. Siep de Haan was behind the [pedophuilia controversy], he's doing everything he can to fight us, including organizing a media riot involving Hekma. Plus, the teen boat isn't about having sex, it's about identity!"

The media storm over the homojongerenboot spread like wildfire on the Internet, and occasioned questions in the Dutch Parliament from the small SPG party, a right-wing Christian group.

Hekma and his university both began receiving a lot of hate mail and death threats.

"I opened my computer and there was the first death threat, reading, 'I am going to push your shit through your throat before kicking you to death,'" the academic recounted. "There were six more like that, all signed."

Hekma conferred with his dean about the death threats, and the university informed  the police - "who are taking them seriously," Hekma said, invoking the recent political assassinations of openly-gay right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn (RIGHT) and anti-immigrant filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

Hekma's right to speak and write freely was supported by his university, but he was publicly disowned by COC and Pro Gay, both of which issued statements criticizing his views.

"Hekma is for lowering the age of consent, but that's not on our agenda," van Dalen told this reporter. "And we resent the things he has said."

COC's statement criticizing Hekma argued: "Gay liberation focused on the discriminatory aspect of the age of consent, not on the principle of an age of consent as such. As soon as the age of consent for both straight and gay/lesbian sex was equalized [in 1972 in the Netherlands], the age of consent stopped being a matter of concern for the Dutch LGBT movement."

"I am a victim of the fight between de Haan, and COC and Pro Gay," Hekma responded. "They dropped me because they were afraid of being called defenders of pedophiles. I've been hurt by my being presented as a pedoprofessor and a pedophile, but I've resisted denying I'm a pedophile on principle so as not to contribute to anti-pedo hysteria. The difference betweeen me and van Dalen is that I'm an academic, open for speculation and some irony, and he as a politician has to think tactically and strategically."

Van Dalen said that "there's no place for irony when talking about force."

The age of consent in the Netherlands was raised to 16 in 2002. Until then, between  the ages of 12 and 16, there was no such thing as the concept of statutory rape on the law books for that age group. As a COC brochure put it at that time, "between 12 and 16 sexual contacts are punishable only when a complaint is lodged.... [O]nly the child, his or her parents, or the Council for the Protection of Children may bring in charges." (RIGHT, COC LOGO)

COC's positions pre-2002 versus today suggest a shift in the group's posture. As its pamphlet put it then in defending the existing law, "nobody is allowed to interfere" with adult-child sexual contacts "as long as the situation is mutually agreeable, but should problems arise, then the sexual relation is certainly punishable."

Now, the organization's position reads: "COC maintains the need for an age of consent, 16 in the Netherlands. A sexual relation between an adult and a minor always warrants suspicion and the need for an investigation. That such a sexual relationship is punishable by law is justified, because it [is] a necessary warning for pedophiles not to seek such contacts with minors and therefore provides some protection for minors. But COC is in favor and supported the Dutch regulation that minors between the age of 12 and 16 are always heard by the public prosecution before a decision to prosecute the adult is taken."

During the media explosion, van Dalen said, the debate shifted from sexual behavior to any discussion at all of under-age homosexual youth.

"The tone was, 'How can a 14-year old know if they're gay or not - they're too young,'" he told me.

When this reporter asked the young inventor of the idea of the youngsters' boat how he'd answer such criticism, Danny replied: "Straight teens are never questioned about their sexuality. It's the same for gay and lesbian teens. Just read their e-mails to me and the mails of older gay men who remember their situation when they were our age. Coming out young, that's the only thing new."

Danny went on to say, "There are simply not enough activities and no specific places for youngsters of my age. Those activities have to be organized. Not by individuals, but by professional organizations. That's why I'm so pleased that COC Netherlands is supporting me. There are plenty of professional organizations working with straight teens. Nobody ever questions the need for that or the intentions of the people and organizations that provide those activities for them. It's just plain homophobia to question their intentions. Why should it be any different for gay and lesbian teens? That's how I see it."

Does Danny see himself as a gay activist in future?

"This is just the start. I really want to make an impact for gay emancipation," he told me. "I would like to work for COC Netherlands. Make sure that people don't cast gays and lesbians out. Especially teens like me, because right now we are really left behind. But many more people still live in isolation feeling lonely. There's still a lot to be done and I want to help and do my bit to change that." 

For more information, see Danny Hoekzema's Web site, http://www.dannysparade.nl/  , COC's Web site, http://www.coc.nl/dopage.pl?thema=any&pagina=home ;and Amsterdam Gay Pride '07 Web site, http://www.amsterdamgaypride.nl/ . Note: Though Danny speaks some English, his answers and their translation were prepared with the assistance of COC.

GOOD NEWS FOR MANI: Readers of this blog will recall that, last October, I made an urgent appeal for contributions to help Mani, an underground Iranian gay activist who had escaped Iran just one step ahead of the police who wanted to arrest  and imprison him. I had previously interviewed Mani about his work inside Iran (see "From Inside Iran, An Underground Gay Activist Speaks," July 5, 2006). Mani had to spend so much money for a "passer" to get him across the border to Turkey that he wound up penniless and sleeping in an Istanbul bus station. Many of you responded with generosity and sent contributions to help Mani.

Well, now there's good news. I have just heard from Arsham Parsi, the young Secretary-General of the Iranian Queer Organization (the new name of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization) that "Mani has been officially recognized as a refugee by UNHCR (the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights) a few days ago. He interviewed again at the UNHCR for his 3^rd country visa and he is waiting for last step of UNHCR's process." This means that Mani will be able to leave Turkey for a gay-friendly country soon. To all those who opened their checkbooks for Mani in his hour of need, a big Thank You!