Yesterday’s announcement by the orthodox Christian party ChristenUnie that it will not ban gay people from representing it in politics but will put Biblical principles above everything else is a classic fudge.

‘We won’t rule out homosexuals but we will only pick people if their lifestyle meets Biblical values’, is what the party is basically saying.
And we all know the Bible is not exactly keen on homosexuality. But what else could the party do but come up with some wishy-washy statement like this if it wanted to remain in government?
The Netherlands does a lot of shouting about its support for gay rights. So it can hardly be partly governed by a party which comes out and says it would ban gays from office because that is what the Bible would want.
The Labour party, trailing so miserably in the polls, could finally take a stand on a matter of principle and leave the coalition. On the other hand, it is all making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill.
There is, at the moment, far too much religion in politics anyway considering the majority of the Dutch population are not church or mosque or synagogue-goers. And would any self-respecting gay man or woman really want to run for election to represent a party that follows the Bible quite so closely?