Europe Weighs In on the Upcoming Election

It’s an unseasonably warm and clear Sunday evening in mid October in Amsterdam, and more than 200 men are milling outside Soho, a faux British pub, on one of the city’s numerous main gay drags, Reguliersdwarsstraat. It’s Soho’s weekly Sunday beer bust, and the crowd has filled the bar to the rafters and spilled outside, confounding hapless drivers trying to make their way down the street.

Thanks to some friendly Dutch rugby players, I’m introduced to Konstantinos, a local celebrity known as one fourth of the “bear band” Bearforce1. Like so many other conversations I’ve had on my three-week trip to Europe, our discussion soon turns to the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Konstantinos, a Greek native, admits he is following the Barack Obama-John McCain race closely. “Nonstop, day and night,” he said over the din. “I’m waking up in the middle of the night to watch the debates.”

The interest and enthusiasm for the U.S. election was palpable in both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the two countries I mainly visited on my trip. I wasn’t sure what I would find out about gay and lesbian impressions of the election but was open-minded about where my very unscientific study would take me.

Konstantinos, like so many of the gay and lesbian Europeans I met, said he is excited about Obama’s candidacy, a feeling he said is shared with most of his gay friends. “As far as I know, 99% are Obama supporters,” he said, noting that “people are so sick and tired of George Bush.” For Konstantinos the complete turnoff regarding McCain was the selection of his running mate. “For me, it was Sarah Palin being selected. It worked for a couple weeks, but I really feel she is not the appropriate person to be president if need be.”

The day before I met Konstantinos I went into the Pink Point, an information booth around the corner from the Anne Frank House and next to the Homomonument, the world’s first monument commemorating the persecution of gays and lesbians. Besides pamphlets, guides, and the obligatory rainbow paraphernalia, there are rows of stickers surrounding the cash register, including black and pink ones emblazoned with “Bush: going, going, gone! “ and “Buck Fush.” The booth’s volunteer, Dominik, tells me the Bush stickers have been marked down. “People don’t feel so strongly about Bush anymore,” he explained.

Like Konstantinos, Dominik said he saw the election as a game-changer. “Of course we’re following it, because it is the end of an era,” he said. “Bush was the enemy because of the gay marriage he wanted to pull down. He focused on oil and the exclusion of immigrants.”

Dominik said he felt sorry for McCain “because he is so old” but described Palin as “quite ridiculous.” He also suggested the LGBT community in Amsterdam “is very enthusiastic of Obama.”

“People want change, and they can relate to that,” Dominik added.

Part of my trip also took place outside the major gay centers, where I wondered if I would find different opinions from what I encountered in a big LGBT-centric destination like Amsterdam. I headed to Gateshead, a city near Newcastle on the River Tyne in northern England that's known for its beer and more recently for its new Millennium Bridge and its contemporary-art museum, the Baltic Centre.