Last week the Dutch association for gays and lesbians, COC, launched its sfeermeter (mood metre), an online poll for determining the gay friendliness of Dutch businesses.

Preliminary results suggest 47% of all companies are ‘top’, with only 2% ranking as ‘derailed’. COC hopes to publish its results at the same time as the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce comes out with its own ranking.
Dutch companies are currently not to be found on the international list, though Philips would like to be one of its leaders, De Pers suggests.

The paper thinks schools may score low on the metre. Teachers union AOB Roze reported the other day that teachers are getting back into the closet, afraid of nasty reactions by students, parents and even employers.

According to COC chairperson Vera Bergkamp, corny workplace jokes (“oops, guess I shouldn’t bend over to pick up this paperclip so close to you”) are what is mainly keeping gays in the office closet.

(Link: depers.nl)