Flower parade to compete with Gay Pride

Wednesday 30 July 2008

More than 120,000 flowers and 700kg of fruit will be on show during the annual boat parade through the Westland horticultural region on Friday, Saturday and Sunday reports ANP news service.

Some 60 boats and 400 volunteers are expected to take part in the event which is taking place for the 11th time.

The organisers hope the parade will attract at least the same number of spectators as last year when 240,000 came to watch the boats.

But the agricultural event has a strong competitor in the Gay Pride parade scheduled for Amsterdam this weekend in which hundreds of boats will form a colourful flotilla through the city’s canals.

Earlier this week a number of prominent Labour ministers and Amsterdam’s Labour mayor Job Cohen confirmed they will take part in the Gay Pride parade in a show of solidarity against discrimination against homosexuals.

The Christian Democrat prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and family minister André Rouvoet of the orthodox Christian ChristenUnie party turned down an invitation to join the event.

© DutchNews.nl

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