I think we tend to forget about the importance of reversion to the mean, socially.
We think: Germans are like this, the French are like this, the Dutch are like this... without thinking that, when one moves out of sync w/the others, its likely, statistically, to move back into line w/the others.
This has nothing to do with left or right specifically. It means that, whatever the mean is, if a country is not there, it's likely to move in that direction over time. It's more likely to move closer to that than away from that, measured over years.
The Dutch were very liberal and still are in many ways, but in such a situation, they are more likely to move in the "less" than "more" direction. And this is probably such a case.
What does it mean to have “a positive view of homosexuality”? Did they ask them to rate homosexuality out of 10? This is one of those infuriating articles that is worth almost nothing without the specifics of the survey, which, inexplicably, are never given.
Edit: This seems to have the questions on p. 93: https://www.trimbos.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TRI-52-007... J is boys and M is girls, and the questions are things like “I could be friends with gay kids”, “It’s gross when two boys kiss each other” and “I can talk about homosexuality at school”, so a drop is indeed concerning.
Morality aside, living as an intolerant is such a bad value prop. You're really just signing up to be mad your whole life, because the toothpaste does not go back in the tube. Gays are not going back in the closet. Just like interracial marriage is not going away, and women's suffrage is not going away. If you're mad about these things you're like a social footnote that people fifty years from now won't really understand because the things you're mad about will have inevitably become so normalized.
Intolerance, of any kind, does not care about praticality. It's the infinite scream of a child, saying "but I don't like it!".
I have no proof, but I really wonder how much of the current resurgence of regressive ideologies (the correct word would be "conservative", but truth is this is a phenomena we can observe across all of the political spectrum) is the byproduct of the glorification of infantilization and nostalgia in our society.
"I want my old movies, I want my old games, I want my old white neighbourhood, I want my parents, I want my old society, I want my youth back".
I mean, will it be normalized? By the way rates are going it seems quite the opposite.
And your other examples don't quite work. Interracial marriage has been allowed in many places (if not most places) throughout history, and even female suffrage was a thing in some polities. Homosexual marriage is not a something that's ever really been practiced in its current form until basically the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
> Interracial marriage has been allowed in many places (if not most places) throughout history, and even female suffrage was a thing in some polities.
You do understand that they were referring to the places it was disallowed? LGTBQ people and same sex marriage have also been tolerated in some times and places (even before the 70s).
While homosexuality has been accepted in many nations and cultures before the modern day, gay marriage including custodianship over children is basically a 21st century invention.
It's not a "21st century invention," not even because it has a longer history than that, but because it's just marriage. It isn't an innovation. Any more than women's suffrage was an innovation. In both cases it's extending enfranchisement to more people.
And the church and its conservative patriarchal misogynist homophobic dogma ruled all our lives for centuries. But it turns out you can beat the church, if you prove to people that there's no invisible man in the sky watching everything you do, dinosaur bones weren't planted here 6,000 years ago, and gay people are actually normal people that are just slightly different. Conservatives may be depending on hate to keep their numbers up, but that's all they have now.
Once again, I'm not sure this is true. Perhaps the Catholic Church is beaten and relegated to the dustbin of history. The article fails to mention the real reason behind a lot of the LGBT acceptance rates going lower, which is that Muslim migrants have more kids and Islam is a very socially conservative religion.
So maybe you beat the Catholics but is there enough willpower to defeat the Muslims?
Again, you're assuming I'm sort of social conservative pariah. I'm not.
> and gay people are actually normal people that are just slightly different
Once again you're trying to convince me instead of the children of the Netherlands. Good luck.
Your analysis is correct. Personally, I think that Islam getting the western left to embrace it as part of "the oppressed" has been the most successful social social movement of the last 20 years.
I'm talking about approval for gay marriage not homosexuality. Obviously homosexuality is ancient. Homosexual marriage in the modern sense is absent from the historical record until 1971. Where it was portrayed it was typically as a joke .
I'm being down voted but I have no real stance on this. If anything I'm in favor of civil rights for all, but I don't see how that changes the historical record. Gay marriage is a novelty compared to female suffrage and interracial marriage.
Interracial marriage was federally protected in 2022, and only permitted by court opinion in 1967 in the US. You better believe it was not socially acceptable in much of the South just because the court said it was legal.
Heck, I bet there are communities today where you cannot safely live if you have an interracial marriage. I don't think it's as solved as you suggest.
I lived in a lefty urban environment in the 90s and recall many people telling me I wasn't allowed to date noon write women.
We have historical proof of homosexual marriage dating back to imperial Rome. IIRC the latest acknowledged homosexual union before modern times goes back to early 1500, before it started being prosecuted more aggressively by the catholic church.
You're taking a fairly strong stance, though it may not seem that way to you. "Same sex marriage was legalized in 1971" is a factual statement not in dispute. "Same sex marriage is a 21st century invention" may seem to you to be the same statement but it carries significant ideological baggage and is a way stronger statement way more in dispute. You go on to say things like "the real reason behind a lot of the LGBT acceptance rates going lower ... is that Muslim migrants have more kids and Islam is a very socially conservative religion." I hardly feel I need to explain why that is not a simple factual statement but really a statement of an ideological and political position.
So while I totally believe you may feel that way, you aren't simply being downvoted for indisputable facts, you've taken a position in a contentious ideological and political debate.
I think we tend to forget about the importance of reversion to the mean, socially.
We think: Germans are like this, the French are like this, the Dutch are like this... without thinking that, when one moves out of sync w/the others, its likely, statistically, to move back into line w/the others.
This has nothing to do with left or right specifically. It means that, whatever the mean is, if a country is not there, it's likely to move in that direction over time. It's more likely to move closer to that than away from that, measured over years.
The Dutch were very liberal and still are in many ways, but in such a situation, they are more likely to move in the "less" than "more" direction. And this is probably such a case.
If that were the case than international beliefs should stay static and rarely change but that's clearly not the case.
What does it mean to have “a positive view of homosexuality”? Did they ask them to rate homosexuality out of 10? This is one of those infuriating articles that is worth almost nothing without the specifics of the survey, which, inexplicably, are never given.
Edit: This seems to have the questions on p. 93: https://www.trimbos.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TRI-52-007... J is boys and M is girls, and the questions are things like “I could be friends with gay kids”, “It’s gross when two boys kiss each other” and “I can talk about homosexuality at school”, so a drop is indeed concerning.
Morality aside, living as an intolerant is such a bad value prop. You're really just signing up to be mad your whole life, because the toothpaste does not go back in the tube. Gays are not going back in the closet. Just like interracial marriage is not going away, and women's suffrage is not going away. If you're mad about these things you're like a social footnote that people fifty years from now won't really understand because the things you're mad about will have inevitably become so normalized.
Intolerance, of any kind, does not care about praticality. It's the infinite scream of a child, saying "but I don't like it!".
I have no proof, but I really wonder how much of the current resurgence of regressive ideologies (the correct word would be "conservative", but truth is this is a phenomena we can observe across all of the political spectrum) is the byproduct of the glorification of infantilization and nostalgia in our society.
"I want my old movies, I want my old games, I want my old white neighbourhood, I want my parents, I want my old society, I want my youth back".
I mean, will it be normalized? By the way rates are going it seems quite the opposite.
And your other examples don't quite work. Interracial marriage has been allowed in many places (if not most places) throughout history, and even female suffrage was a thing in some polities. Homosexual marriage is not a something that's ever really been practiced in its current form until basically the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
> Interracial marriage has been allowed in many places (if not most places) throughout history, and even female suffrage was a thing in some polities.
You do understand that they were referring to the places it was disallowed? LGTBQ people and same sex marriage have also been tolerated in some times and places (even before the 70s).
> LGTBQ people and same sex marriage
While homosexuality has been accepted in many nations and cultures before the modern day, gay marriage including custodianship over children is basically a 21st century invention.
Same sex marriage has been allowed in a number of societies throughout history. There are a number of examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions
It's not a "21st century invention," not even because it has a longer history than that, but because it's just marriage. It isn't an innovation. Any more than women's suffrage was an innovation. In both cases it's extending enfranchisement to more people.
And the church and its conservative patriarchal misogynist homophobic dogma ruled all our lives for centuries. But it turns out you can beat the church, if you prove to people that there's no invisible man in the sky watching everything you do, dinosaur bones weren't planted here 6,000 years ago, and gay people are actually normal people that are just slightly different. Conservatives may be depending on hate to keep their numbers up, but that's all they have now.
Once again, I'm not sure this is true. Perhaps the Catholic Church is beaten and relegated to the dustbin of history. The article fails to mention the real reason behind a lot of the LGBT acceptance rates going lower, which is that Muslim migrants have more kids and Islam is a very socially conservative religion.
So maybe you beat the Catholics but is there enough willpower to defeat the Muslims?
Again, you're assuming I'm sort of social conservative pariah. I'm not.
> and gay people are actually normal people that are just slightly different
Once again you're trying to convince me instead of the children of the Netherlands. Good luck.
Your analysis is correct. Personally, I think that Islam getting the western left to embrace it as part of "the oppressed" has been the most successful social social movement of the last 20 years.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/09/a-muslim-majority-city-b...
[dead]
What do you mean the way rates are going? Homosexuality has existed for as long as there have been humans.
[dead]
I'm talking about approval for gay marriage not homosexuality. Obviously homosexuality is ancient. Homosexual marriage in the modern sense is absent from the historical record until 1971. Where it was portrayed it was typically as a joke .
I'm being down voted but I have no real stance on this. If anything I'm in favor of civil rights for all, but I don't see how that changes the historical record. Gay marriage is a novelty compared to female suffrage and interracial marriage.
Interracial marriage was federally protected in 2022, and only permitted by court opinion in 1967 in the US. You better believe it was not socially acceptable in much of the South just because the court said it was legal.
Heck, I bet there are communities today where you cannot safely live if you have an interracial marriage. I don't think it's as solved as you suggest.
I lived in a lefty urban environment in the 90s and recall many people telling me I wasn't allowed to date noon write women.
We have historical proof of homosexual marriage dating back to imperial Rome. IIRC the latest acknowledged homosexual union before modern times goes back to early 1500, before it started being prosecuted more aggressively by the catholic church.
You're taking a fairly strong stance, though it may not seem that way to you. "Same sex marriage was legalized in 1971" is a factual statement not in dispute. "Same sex marriage is a 21st century invention" may seem to you to be the same statement but it carries significant ideological baggage and is a way stronger statement way more in dispute. You go on to say things like "the real reason behind a lot of the LGBT acceptance rates going lower ... is that Muslim migrants have more kids and Islam is a very socially conservative religion." I hardly feel I need to explain why that is not a simple factual statement but really a statement of an ideological and political position.
So while I totally believe you may feel that way, you aren't simply being downvoted for indisputable facts, you've taken a position in a contentious ideological and political debate.