Angered by New Law : Dutch Gays Protest British Queen’s Visit

Queen Elizabeth II of Britain faced scores of angry homosexuals in Amsterdam today during a royal visit aimed at underscoring 300 years of British-Dutch friendship.

The demonstrators, protesting against a new British law that forbids local authorities to promote homosexuality, banged pots and pans and blew whistles to drown out a band greeting the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, in the city’s Dam Square.

The protesters shouted “It’s OK to be gay!” and “Say no to Clause 28!” the new law.

Unprecedented security measures surrounded the royal visit, which comes two months after three off-duty British soldiers were killed in the Netherlands by Irish guerrillas.

The Dam Square area was closed to traffic and police perched on gabled rooftops, monitoring the movements of the protesters through binoculars.

Ignoring the demonstrators and the drizzling rain, the royal couple, accompanied by Dutch Queen Beatrix and her husband, Prince Claus, walked through the square past children who cheered and waved flags.

The royal visit, first by Queen Elizabeth to the Netherlands since 1962, is part of celebrations marking 300 years of close ties between the two countries since Dutch Prince William III of Orange sailed to England to become its king.

But the Dutch homosexual community found the celebrations objectionable.

“We don’t think there is a need to show Dutch-British friendship because of what is being done to lesbians and gays there,” protester Mark van der Velde said.

“We want to show solidarity with British gays and stress that what happens in Britain now can happen in Holland and in other European countries later,” said Caroline Smith about the new British law.

Homosexuals have focused on the William and Mary celebrations in part because some historians believe William probably had intimate relations with men.