Dutch turn to Bible Belt in search of security

Just 90 minutes’ drive from Amsterdam and its temptations is a village so devout that swearing is banned, women refuse to wear trousers and the bank machine does not dispense cash on a Sunday.

The Netherlands, best known abroad for its liberal policies on sex, drugs and homosexuality, is also home to a Protestant “Bible Belt” mapped out by villages such as Staphorst.

Now a small political party long associated with the Bible Belt, the Christen Unie (United Christians or CU), is benefiting from a surge of support outside its rural heartland triggered by nostalgia for a more moral, compassionate society.

After almost doubling its vote in last November’ general election to 4 percent, the CU has become the kingmaker in the Netherlands’ new centrist coalition government, a feat unthinkable at the time of the previous election in 2003.

Read full article: Reuters via The Scotsman, 12 March 2007