Mayor Job Cohen also performed the first weddings in the Netherlands after the country began allowing same-sex marriages in 2001.

“We’ve come really far, farther than we ever thought was possible in just a few years,” Cohen said in an interview between ceremonies. “There’s still a lot to do, that’s the message.”

Each marriage Saturday included on partner from New York and one from the Netherlands

The festival attracts hundreds of thousands of gay rights supporters, who dance on packed streets in the city center and watch colorful boat-floats parade down the city’s ancient canals.

The marriages were also part of celebrations of the 400th anniversary of New York-Netherlands ties.

Deputy Mayor Carolien Gehrels said New York and Amsterdam are a natural fit, given their “shared values of tolerance, creativity and a spirit of commerce.”

Gehrels, who is married to another Dutch woman, said gay marriage is “a human right.”

Saturday’s marriages may be valid in New York – though they could not have legally been performed there.

Governor David Paterson has ordered that gay marriages approved in other jurisdictions be recognized by the state. U.S. Federal law defines marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.

Ira Siff, a New Yorker who married his Dutch partner Hans Pieter Herman on Saturday, said he believed it was a matter of time before people New York will able to marry whomever they want.

“We’re the most liberal, advanced state in the United States; it should be happening there now,” he said.

“I imagine it will take a while because there are always factions in the states who confuse religion and government. That’s weird because of course the U.S. was formed to separate those two things.”

A solid majority of the Dutch population now supports gay marriage, polls show, and the topic is considered unremarkable.

But a University of Amsterdam study last year found that attitudes against homosexuality are still strong in the Netherlands and anti-gay violence usually goes unreported.

The study, titled “As Long As They Keep Away From Me,” concluded that the tolerance professed by many Dutch is only a veneer: gay men especially are accepted only as long as they don’t display stereotypically gay behavior.

Police say about 70 gay-bashing attacks a year are reported in Amsterdam, a city of 750,000.

Friday night, vandals painted the words “Homos Go To Hell” in large letters across a bridge where the boat parade was to pass.

Frank van Dalen, the head of the organization that organizes the festival, removed the grafitti and shrugged off the incident. He estimated more than half a million people turned out to watch the parade, a record.

“Today we’re having a party and we are proud,” he said via Twitter.

Organizers said the event was meant to raise Amsterdam’s profile as a gay capital at a time when homosexuals feel threatened.

Christians for Truth, an independent religious group, had asked the city council to cancel the “Pink Christmas,” event, saying it made a mockery of Christian tenets. The city did not comment.

A male entertainer known as Wendy Mills posed as Mary in a blonde wig and high-heeled black boots and holding a plastic doll. Another man played Joseph in black leather trunks and a silver shawl.

The five-person manger scene was staged off the street, in the courtyard of a nightclub. Visitors were invited to be photographed with the group. The first was 3-month-old Lily Pink Albers, Mills’ niece.

“By portraying Joseph and Mary as homosexuals, a twisted human fantasy is being added to the history of the Bible,” Christians for Truth said in a statement ahead of the event.

A few dozen visitors wandered through the 100-yard (meter) long Pink Market past stalls selling leather goods and Christmas cards with gay themes on a downtown street known for its gay nightlife and popular restaurants.

Frank van Dalen, chairman of Pro Gay, which organized the event, said gays were not satisfied with being tolerated, but wanted to be “socially accepted as an indivisible part of society.”

He said the Amsterdam city council sponsored the euro15,000 ($21,000) event, which he hoped would become a regular event, like the annual floating summertime gay pride parade through the city’s canals that attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

“Our objective is not to be offensive. This is about visibility,” he said.

Van Dalen pointed to a report last month that said homophobia was an ingrained problem in Amsterdam, despite the city’s freewheeling reputation.

The study by the University of Amsterdam reported 67 violent attacks against gays in 2007, which police said was about average.

Van Dalen said gays were feeling increasingly uncomfortable in public in recent years, and that they perceived Dutch society as more assertive about “classical values.”

Other attractions in the 10-day festival include parties, an open-air market, gay-themed films, an ice skating rink and religious services on Dec. 25.

ProGay group chairman Frank van Dalen said Monday the event is intended to increase the choices for homosexual men and women during the Christmas holiday week.

“Right now, there’s not much to do,” he said.

The festival will also encourage people to think about homosexuality and religion, Van Dalen added.

Some Christian groups protested. The organization Christians for Truth said the idea “mocks the core concepts of Evangelism.”

“By putting Joseph and Mary down as homosexuals, a cracked human fantasy is being tacked on to history from the Bible,” the organization said in a statement urging the city and organizers to cancel the event.

The manger, with actors playing the parts of Joseph and Mary, goes on display Dec. 21.

Van Dalen said it was not intended to be offensive, but was meant as a “wink” at heterosexual assumptions.

“Christmas is about more than religion, it’s also about love and families, not to mention shopping,” he said. “Two men or two women can form a family too these days, even one with a child.”

Gay marriage was legalized in the Netherlands in 2001, and adoption rules are the same here for gay or straight couples.

Van Dalen said the Pink Christmas initiative was also intended to help promote Amsterdam as a gay capital after a decline in its reputation in recent years.

A study last month found that homophobia is an ingrained problem in the city despite the Dutch reputation for tolerance, and physical attacks on gay men are a weekly affair.

Town councilman Freek Ossel said the University of Amsterdam study, commissioned by the city, said the Dutch capital must improve protection of gays, increase education, and encourage reporting of discriminatory incidents.

“Amsterdam’s title as a gay capital, according to some people, has already been gone for years, and according to others in any case it’s at stake,” he said.

The study said 67 attacks were reported in Amsterdam in 2007. Police commissioner Leo Wilde said the number was about average for recent years and “is not decreasing.”

The figure is difficult to compare with other cities. Amsterdam, with 750,000 people, has tried for years to improve reporting of anti-gay incidents, but police believe most still go unreported.

The study found that most attacks were carried out spontaneously by poorly educated young men who feel their masculinity has been questioned.

“In 40 percent of cases the trigger is if people think they’re being targeted” for seduction, said Laurens Buijs, one of the study’s authors. Attackers “see gays as predatory animals that can strike at any moment.”

The study drew its title “As Long As They Keep Away From Me” from that fear. It concluded that the tolerance often professed by Dutch youth is only a veneer: gay men are accepted only as long as they don’t display stereotypically gay behavior.

The study combined a broad survey of Amsterdam youth with in-depth interviews with smaller groups. Authors also interviewed individual attackers and reviewed recent cases.

“It’s very sad confirmation of what we already suspected,” said Dennis Boutkan, chairman of the Union for Homosexual Integration. “The layer of social acceptance of homosexuality is exceptionally fragile and thin.”