One of GALHA’s members in the Netherlands, Kees Waaldijk, has been appointed to serve on a government commission to look into the pros and cons of same-sex marriage.
Following a resolution carried in the Dutch parliament in April this year calling for a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry, the Justice Minister has set up a commission to look into all aspects of such legislation, including the issues of parenthood and adoption.
The commission, which is due to present its findings by August 1997, is chaired by Bas Kortmann, professor of law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. Other members of the commission include Kees Waaldijk and Astrid Mattijssen, who have been active both in the Dutch lesbian and gay movement and the International Lesbian and Gay Association.
Kees Waaldijk, who joined GALHA in 1987, teaches law at the University of Leiden and is a member of the Netherlands Family Council. Until recently he worked as a law researcher at the University of Utrecht’s Gay and Lesbian Studies (Homostudies) Department. He is now employed by the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights at the same university to do research on the free movement of same-sex partners in Europe.