The pink euro? Companies gear up for Amsterdam Pride boat parade

DutchNews, August 3, 2018

Gay Pride in Amsterdam. Photo: Depositphotos.com

Dutch companies have been going all out to celebrate Amsterdam Pride, the celebration of the city’s gay and transgender community, which reaches its peak on Saturday with the traditional canal boat parade. 

High street staple Hema has organised three same-sex marriages for couples who cannot tie the knot in their country of origin and is selling cream slices in rainbow colours. 

Station snack bar Smullers has pink mayonnaise on offer, four Shell petrol stations have been transformed with rainbow hues and rainbow flags are flying all over the city. 

The commercialisation of Pride, which first took place as Gay Pride in 1996, has irritated some activists. Companies pay €30,000 to operate a boat in the canal parade, which attracts some 500,000 people every year. 

‘There are a lot of complaints in my circle about the way the boat parade has become commercialised since companies were able to take part,’ Utrecht University researcher and activist Linda Duits told the Financieele Dagblad. 

However, Frits Huffnagel, chairman of the organising committee brushes off the criticism. ‘The event lasts nine days and it costs €1m to put on,’ he said. ‘That is not just for the boat parade, but for the Pride walk, the senior Pride, the trans Pride, the events on the Dam and on Rembrandtplein.’ 

Council 

The city council contributes €250,000 towards the bill and the rest, Huffnagel says, has to be raised by the organisation itself. 

Groningen University professor Bob Fennis told the NRC that companies are interested in Pride because of the money to be made from attaching their names to a good cause. 

Everyone wants to be seen as supporting diversity and sending out a universal message and there are few risks, he said. ‘In mainstream Dutch society, homosexuality is almost entirely accepted,’ he said. 

Pinkwashing

Nevertheless, some companies are being accused of pinkwashing and Hema’s Pride t-shirt range was actually produced in Bangladesh, where homosexuality is a crime. 

‘Visibility, that is the painful issue for the gay community at the moment,’ Philip Tijsma, of the COC gay rights campaign group told the NRC. ‘People say they have nothing against homosexuality but two men kissing is seen as shocking.’ 

‘Every step towards visibility, whether from the government or companies, contributes to normalising homosexuality. There is no acceptance, without visibility.’

Paris' Gay Games, which kick off Saturday, are a week of sport and culture aimed to "promote self-improvement rather than victory" https://t.co/oa7Jw85eUq

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 3, 2018

Related Articles:

"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

“… Gender Switching

Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."

It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."