Every time he leaves his house in the Amsterdam borough Slotervaart, a Moroccan gay man looks through the peep hole in his door to check for gay-bashers. "But unfortunately the bastard will always be waiting on the corner of the street. When the gay man passes, he gets called names and spat on", says Ahmed Marcouch. The chairman of this immigrant borough of 45,000 people has taken it upon himself to fight this type of homophobia. On Wednesday he presented a memorandum with measures to make the neighbourhood more gay-friendly.

Marcouch wants to see a gay bar opened, he wants to educate primary school children and organise a football tournament between Moroccan and gay teams. "The freedom of gay people is my freedom and my freedom is the freedom of gay people," the prominent local politician said at the presentation of his proposals.

Amsterdam, long hailed as the gay capital of the world, has lost much of that reputation due to some violent incidents in recent years. Whether or not Muslim youth are responsible for the attacks is a subject of debate, but a clash between the public acceptance of homosexuality and the rejection of that practise by Islam is most apparent in Slotervaart. The borough, which gained international notoriety as the neighbourhood of Mohammed B., the murderer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, is home to a largely immigrant population with 7,500 Moroccan-Dutch and 4,000 Turkish-Dutch people. At the same time, the borough contains a large recreational area, the Oeverlanden, that functions as an open-air meeting place for homosexual men looking for sex.

'They are not people'

Robberies and violence against these men have made the news in recent years, as have incidents in the centre of Amsterdam. The American journalist Chris Crain was molested when he and his boyfriend were walking hand in hand in Amsterdam in 2005. Crain wrote about the assault in The Washington Blade, the gay magazine of which he was the editor in chief. "I hope our gay friends in Holland realise that it's a bit too soon to declare victory and go home, now that they've won their legal battles," he wrote, referring to same sex marriage being legal in the Netherlands.

A 2008 report by the University of Amsterdam, entitled 'As long as they don't touch me', showed that the acceptance of homosexuality is low amongst young men like those living in Slotervaart. In the report, one of them is quoted as saying: "They are not people. Dogs, monkeys, animals are better than those people."

Marcouch now wants to take the shock treatment approach to this intolerance. Marcouch, a Muslim who was born in Morocco himself, has already made an appearance at the 'Pink Eid Al-Fitr', a gay celebration of the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, and he has debated with religious leaders who say that Islam and homosexuality can't co-exist. And now he wants to take it one step further: "We're going to take the confrontational approach and it will be painful at times."

Justification of intolerance

In a controversial move, Marcouch now wants Amsterdam's famous Gay Pride parade to start in Slotervaart this year. The organisers of the parade, which takes place on Amsterdam's canals, say this is technically impossible. They have offered instead to give Marcouch a place on the first boat to sail in the parade in August. "If Gay Pride can't come to Slotervaart, Slotervaart can come to Gay Pride," organiser Frank van Dalen said.

But Marcouch is dissatisfied with this alternative. "It's about the change that should take place here, not in the centre," he says.

The discussion about homosexuality in Slotervaart is complicated by the fact that Islam is often called upon as a justification for intolerance towards gays. Violence against gays is often attributed to young men "with Moroccan features", even though the 2008 study by the university of Amsterdam showed that the perpetrators are just as often of Dutch origin (36 percent) as of Moroccan origin (36 percent).

Intolerance is also not limited to Muslims, as the policies of the junior partner in the Dutch government show. The orthodox Christian ChristenUnie does not allow its own openly gay party members to hold public office. "Minister Rouvoet for youth and family policy has a clear role in educating children. But his own party gives Muslims an excuse to reject homosexuals," Marcouch says.