Some call the Dutch pioneers of progressiveness. Others wonder if they're not degenerates. Yet, while all these laws attracted worldwide attention, their evolution was so gradual here that the Dutch hardly noticed when they were finally adopted and quietly went into force. All were debated for decades, then carefully crafted into bills reflecting a broad consensus. The Dutch say they are just as conservative as other Europeans, only more sensible about dealing with alternative lifestyles, employing an art of pragmatism drawn from deep in their history.
Decriminalization gives authorities greater control over activities that happens anyway, they argue.
After the Netherlands overturned a widely ignored 1912 ban on brothels last year, these houses became taxpaying establishments required to give standard employee benefits. The law also was designed to weed out illegal immigrants, underage girls and forced prostitution. Euthanasia traditionally accounts for about 3,500 deaths a year in the Netherlands, a rate the Dutch say is secretly matched in other countries. But the law passed in April firmly regulates the conditions under which doctors may help patients end their lives. Today, only a few miles from the wide-open cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam is a broad Bible belt, where shops are closed on Sunday and where a fundamentalist Christian organization claims the bulk of its half million members.