Cartoons

A cartoon takes a serious subject and mixes it with a funny element. The cartoonists Opland, Peter van Straaten and Jaap Vegter have been making cartoons for al very long time. All three cartoonists have drawn attention to the LGBT-community.

Peter van Straaten has made the ‘Portret van een Taboe’ (=Portrait of a Taboo). In the drawing you can see a family with two women instead of a man and a woman. Nowadays it is not that shocking, but when this cartoon was made, in 1978, it was very controversial.

In the cartoon of Jaap Vegter, you can see how preconceptions are created. Scheveningse Bos(=Scheveningen Forest) is known as a meeting place for homosexuals. Because people jump to conclusions very easily, all man who go there, straight and gay, are seen as viezerik (= pervert).

The drawing of Opland depicts a court decision from 1987. Cardinal Simons said that landlords may refuse to house gays. The COC (Dutch society for integration of homoseksuality) brought him to court over discrimination charges. The judge decided that freedom of religion was more important than non-discrimination.