Making his way
across Amsterdam and the U.K. to chat up Europeans and
Americans living abroad on the upcoming U.S. elections,
Christopher Lisotta finds that many people are more
fed up than we are -- and nearly all see the
potential for change in Barack Obama.
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.
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