The Dutch city of Utrecht is now part of other cities that have installed gay traffic lights to show their support for same-sex love.
The city hall has installed the signs at two pedestrian crossings in the city. The traffic lights depict same-sex couples holding hands and occasionally little hearts added to suggest love and acceptance.
The initiative is meant to make people accept all forms of love. Councilman Kees Geldorf explained the impact he wants the signs to have on people, and pointed that Utrecht is a city that welcomes diversity.
“They show Utrecht is a many-sided city,” the councilman said.
“And they do give cause for reflection while you are waiting for the lights to change.”
Utrecht is definitely a gay friendly city as it was the first to have a rainbow crossing instead of a zebra.
In 2015, the city-hall of Vienna had the same initiative, replacing the the man or the genderless person on the traffic lights with happy LGBT couples.
These kinds of initiatives bring a positive vibe to the LGBT community as we are told that we are seen and accepted in society, we are not invisible. This kind of exposure could bring major changes in the overall mentality. People get to reflect and get used to something that is unknown to them.
If people stopped for a while and imagined going back in time, centuries ago. And they would act like they do now, knowing what they know now, bringing all the knowledge and technology with them to those people, they would realize that for that society they would be something unknown, something to be afraid of. Fear would take over the people of those times and the person experimenting this fictive situation would be judged, punished, not accepted.
What I mean is that maybe one hundred years from now homosexuality will be seen as normal, so we basically live in the past of those people who will accept same sex-love. With little steps like placing gay traffic lights we move forward but we may not be around when gay people will live in total acceptance.
I hope for more initiatives that will bring a change in people’s minds!
