Netherlands - Anti-gay talk sparks Dutch outcry - News about religious cults and sects

Amsterdam - Gays in the Netherlands, famed for its tradition of tolerance, were up in arms on Thursday after comments by Muslim clerics in the country who dubbed homosexuality a disease.

Public prosecutors launched a criminal investigation after a Rotterdam imam (prayer leader), Khalil el-Moumni, said homosexuality was a sickness that could destroy society.
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Gay rights campaigner Henk Krol, editor of the Gay Krant newspaper, said he had been deluged with phone calls and emails since the Muslim leader made his comments on the Nova TV show.

El-Moumni told a television current affairs programme last week that homosexuality was a dangerous sickness and said society was threatened with extinction if gays were permitted to wed.

"Homosexuality does not remain restricted to the people who have this disease," he said. "If this disease spreads, everyone could become infected."

The leaders of the Netherlands' four biggest mosques, quoted in the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad appeared to endorse his view.

One of the imams branded homosexuality "shameless, improper, scandalous and intolerable", while another said medical treatment was the only solution, according to the NRC.

'People are afraid, frightened, upset'
"If the hole in the dyke is not plugged soon, the whole country will be flooded," Amsterdam Imam Mohamed Shafiqur Rehmaan was quoted as saying.

The Netherlands, pacesetter for gay rights, witnessed the world's first same-sex marriages in April after becoming the first nation to legalise homosexual matrimony.

Krol said gays had felt fundamentalist Muslims growing ever less tolerant towards homosexuals in recent years.

"People are afraid, frightened, upset," Krol said. "They had felt they were natural companions with other minority groups which so often have problems being accepted."
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A spokesperson for the public prosecutor in Rotterdam said authorities were investigating the imam to see whether he could be prosecuted for discrimination or defamation.

Should he be prosecuted and convicted, he would face a maximum penalty of a year in prison or a fine, she said. - Reuters
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Commentary:
Most Muslims who have settled in the Netherlands have adjusted well to life in a democratic, civilized country. However, some Muslims apparently believe they can engage in hate speech against Jews, homosexuals, unbelievers or others they disagree with. And that attitude is one thing the Dutch will not tolerate.

Several Muslims groups have distantiated themselves from the remarks made by the Imams.