Amsterdam wants to be a city where LGBTI people are safe, but the draft declaration states that they still have to deal with “discrimination, rejection and even violence”. This is mainly due to the ‘hard street culture’, but according to the municipality there are also authors who ‘invoke their faith’.
The municipality therefore wanted religious organizations to speak out against violence against LGBT people. But the way he relayed that request to the mosque administrators aroused resentment: they felt cornered.
Friday night Halsema spoke AT5 program The interview with the mayor withdraw the declaration. Because for me it wasn’t a political statement. I wanted to take a step forward with the others and I don’t feel the need to spitefully or otherwise push it in people’s faces. That wasn’t the intention. ‘
The statement “was not a test, nor an assessment of good or bad behavior,” the mayor said. She therefore ‘does not understand at all’ why the mosque authorities feel attacked. For some time now, talks have been going on between the municipality and the Islamic community. According to Halsema, it has been established that the image prevails that the Islamic community is intolerant towards LGBT people. The idea of making a statement would also have arisen there.
The mosques found it particularly painful that only they were presented with the declaration. Other religious organizations received the statement only after the mosque authorities protested. But according to Halsema, this was exactly the deal. «Agreements would have been made first with the Islamic community, precisely because of sensitivity. After that, with their consent, others could join as well. ‘
Halsema regrets that mosques have sought publicity and polarized the subject. The ongoing consultations between the municipality and the Islamic community are also interrupted. This, he says, makes it impossible to proceed with the declaration.
