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Home > News Commentary > The Pro-Family Victory that Turned the Netherlands Upside Down

The Pro-Family Victory that Turned the

Netherlands Upside Down
by James Bascom
April 20, 2023

Few people in the West would consider the

Netherlands to be a country receptive to a pro-family
message.

Few people in the West would consider the Netherlands to be a country receptive to a pro-family
message. Fewer still would imagine that any pro-family organization could exist there, much less one
that achieves victories.

The Netherlands’ reputation in popular culture is that of a European Las Vegas drawing millions of
visitors to Amsterdam for drugs, gambling and prostitution. Its self-image is one of radical
individualism—classical liberalism in economics and libertarianism in morals. Believing their own
propaganda, Dutch cultural leftists have rested on their laurels for decades, secure in their belief that in
Holland, the sexual revolution has triumphed over all opposition.
This myth suffered a serious blow in February when Civitas Christiana—a Dutch pro-family
organization that is an autonomous member of the international network of Societies for the Defense of
Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP)—launched a petition through its campaign Gezin in Gevaar
(“Family in Danger”) that successfully stopped the distribution of a poem to Dutch children written by
LGBT activist and pro-pedophilia author Pim Lammers.

Gezin in Gevaar’s victory sparked an intense, nationwide debate and media firestorm that lasted over
one month. The Dutch LGBT movement, the entire Dutch media and even Prime Minister Mark Rutte
joined in a massive uproar of anger, disbelief and fear. Every establishment institution defended Pim
Lammers’ right to publish pro-pedophilia propaganda, while Dutch television, radio and newspapers
mocked Hugo Bos, the secretary of Civitas Christiana, for his traditional Catholic views on family and
marriage.

The “Pim Lammers affair” began with Kinderboekenweek (Children’s Book Week), an annual event in
the Netherlands that promotes authors of newly published children’s books. It is organized by the
Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek (Collective Promotion of the Dutch Book”), or
CPNB, an association of Dutch publishers and bookstores that promotes Dutch literature. As first
reported by reactionair.nl, the CPNB asked Pim Lammers, a well-known Dutch homosexual and LGBT
activist, to write a poem that would be distributed to children across the Netherlands.

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In addition to being a well-known homosexual activist, Pim Lammers is also a writer of sexually-
charged children’s books. One of these books is  The Farmer and the Vet, a story about two men who
fall in love with one another. Another is The Little Lamb That is a Pig, which is used to teach gender
theory to kindergarteners. Yet another book, Trainer, is about a twelve-year-old boy who is abused by
his adult soccer coach but seems to like it.

Controversy began immediately after the CPNB announced its selection of Lammers to write the
children’s poem. Some Dutch celebrities, including Kim Feenstra and Monique Smit, made strong
statements against it. Anticipating the polemic about its choice of Lammers, the CPNB doubled down,
saying that they had “very consciously chosen” Lammers because his books are about “being yourself
as a child.” The Dutch Language Union, the international organization that oversees the Dutch
language, also tweeted its support for the CPNB.
On February 4, Gezin in Gaavar launched an online petition asking the Children’s Book Week to
withdraw its poem-writing invitation to Pim Lammers. Within 24 hours, it went viral and was signed
by over 5,000 people. For a country of 17 million, 5,000 is a very significant number, equivalent to
approximately 100,000 in the United States. The petition later rose to over 7,200. The controversy also
trended on Twitter for weeks.

Within one day after the petition appeared online, Children’s Book Week announced that Lammers had
decided to withdraw from writing the poem. He claimed he had received “death threats” and was the
victim of “pertinently untrue” allegations that he promotes pedophilia.

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Immediately after Lammers’ statement, the entire Dutch media erupted with outrage. The Lammers
affair quickly became a national issue, with all the major Dutch newspapers reporting on it, including
De Telegraaf, Algemeen Dagblad, De Volkskrant, NRC, and Trouw. From the very beginning, the
media refused to defend Pim Lammers on the central issue: the morality of pedophilia. As if sensing
that pedophilic literature for children is a bridge too far in the eyes of public opinion, the Dutch media
simply changed the subject. Instead, they made the issue about the alleged death threats against
Lammers. In their view, Civitas Christiana, as an “extreme right-wing” organization that is attacking
“free speech,” is the real threat to the Netherlands.

The fact is sexual revolutionaries have fought for the sexualization of children for nearly a century.
Wilhelm Reich, who coined the term “sexual revolution,” wrote that children are “sexually aware”
beings and that it is harmful to repress their sexual desires. Some of his disciples went on to found pro-
pedophilia organizations. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the icon of the May 1968 student revolt in the
Sorbonne, admitted in media interviews and his 1975 book Le Grand Bazar that he had enjoyed sexual
contact with children as young as five. The German Green Party was forced to apologize in 2014 for its
pro-pedophilia positions going back to its founding in 1980.

More recently, the Dutch state-owned broadcaster NPO raised controversy by giving a platform to
Nelson Maatman, a member of the pro-pedophilia group MARTIJN Association, to defend his views.
NPO also produced a show called “Gewoon. Bloot.” (“Simply. Naked.”) in which adults take their
clothes off in front of children. In 2019, the Young Democrats, the youth wing of the Dutch Democratic
Party (D66) that is part of the current governing coalition in The Hague, published a document that
called for the normalization of pedophilia as “a sexual orientation that one is born with.” It is
impossible to deny that the Dutch and European establishment has favored, or at least remained
indifferent, to the normalization of pedophilia. And at the cultural level, the spread of Drag Queen
Story Hours worldwide is the clearest evidence yet that the LGBT movement wants to groom children
to accept its agenda, as one activist admitted on camera.

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On Saturday, February 4, a full-page advertisement appeared in all the major Dutch newspapers with
the signatures of hundreds of writers, intellectuals and other public figures supporting Lammers. The
official reason was to defend “freedom of speech.” Yet many signers, including Marthijn
Uittenbogaard, Sidney Smeets, Arnon Grunberg and Meindert Fennema, have previously come out
openly supporting pedophilia. Smeets had to retire as a member of parliament in 2021 for soliciting
underage boys for sex. No less than twelve signers of the statement in defense of Lammers were also
signers of a 2014 statement in defense of the pro-pedophilia group MARTIJN Association. One signer,
former Dutch MP Ed Nijpels of the People’s Party (VVD), has publicly advocated for the
decriminalization of sexual relations with children since 1978.

Trying to change the subject even further, NPO focused on the alleged death threats to Lammers. One
NPO host accused Gezin in Gevaar of inciting these threats and called on the Dutch government to
investigate the organization for its “extremist or even terrorist acts.” Gezin in Gevaar vehemently
denied ever having made death threats or using violence in any way and pointed out that the
organization has itself been the target of several death threats over the past five years. The media
remained conspicuously silent when LGBT activists physically assaulted Civitas Christiana volunteers
multiple times or when Antifa militants vandalized its offices.

The next day, Prime Minister Mark Rutte tweeted a statement defending Pim Lammers, saying that
“free speech is a great asset in our constitutional state” and that “only the courts set limits.” Only one
member of the Dutch parliament, Wybren van Haga, had the courage to make a public statement
against Lammers. “Someone who glorifies child abuse should never be given a podium,” he tweeted.

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Civitas Christiana makes no secret that it is inspired and guided by the traditional social and moral
teachings of the Catholic Church. It was not surprising, then, that progressive Catholics also came out
in opposition to its campaign. Fr. Jan-Jaap van Peperstraten, a Dutch Catholic priest with a prominent
social media presence, attacked Civitas Christiana for its positions against homosexuality, its defense of
private property, and its supposed goal of imposing an “Islamic caliphate.” Bishop Gerard de Korte of
the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch also published a statement in which he attacked Civitas for not having
accepted “modern culture” and, in particular, for rejecting the principles of the French Revolution:
liberty, equality and fraternity.
The universal and overwhelming hostility from the media and the Dutch establishment might give the
idea that the Dutch people are on their side. Their own words, however, betray the opposite. Dutch
writer Dolf Verroen said that Pim Lammers is likely to have his name permanently associated with
pedophilia advocacy, a “disaster” for him that will be “difficult to get rid of and will keep popping up
on the Internet.”

There is also a fear that traditionalist and even reactionary ideas about the family, morality, and religion
are much more attractive in the Netherlands than most people realize. Some newspapers and radio
programs expressed fear that groups like Civitas Christiana are “winning the cultural and
communications war” and that the “anti-gender movement could gain strength in the Netherlands.”
Others expressed shock that such a small group could implement a “successful strategy” with such
“wide reach.” The successful campaign is proof that a small group and a well-chosen issue can have a
decisive impact on public opinion and defeat the advances of the sexual revolution, even in the
Netherlands.

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The unprecedented media hostility was not only about a poem. The petition revealed a serious fissure
in Dutch society on freedom and public morality. Unlike the libertarian country portrayed in tourism
advertisements, a large minority of its population is disgusted with the sexual revolution and still
believes in the natural family but remains silent out of fear.

As Western societies slide ever closer into sexual and social anarchy, this hitherto silent segment of
people is reacting and breaking the false consensus. The horrifying consequences of radical
individualism with gender ideology and pedophilia are pushing people to reject the paradigm of liberal
modernity. Many are even looking to the country’s Christian past for answers. One thing is certain: the
image of the Netherlands as an entirely libertarian country without any opposition to the sexual
revolution is obsolete.

James Bascom is a writer and researcher for Civitas Christiana, a Dutch non-profit organization that is
an autonomous part of the international network of Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and
Property (TFP). He lives in Veenendaal, Netherlands.

Tradition, Family, Property - TFP

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Miguel Barvo − ⚑
9 hours ago

When one relies in GOD nothing is impossible.

May GOD fill our hearts with HIS LOVE.

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David A. Lelli − ⚑
12 hours ago

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large
millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:6

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