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.”

The Groningen District Court found the two guilty of severe assault for injecting semiconscious men with HIV-infected blood at sex parties between January 2006 and May 2007.

Peter M., 49, who was also convicted of rape, was sentenced to nine years in prison and Hans J., 39, received a five-year sentence. Under Dutch privacy laws, the surnames of convicted criminals are not released.

Prosecutors said they would appeal for higher sentences.

“By committing these acts, (Peter M.) has shown himself to have a serious lack of respect for the rights of others,” the three-judge panel’s written ruling said. “While he knew from his own experience what far-reaching consequences are tied to an infection with HIV, he repeatedly attempted to bring this same hurt to others.”

Prosecutors had argued that the two men, along with a third who was acquitted of major charges, had drugged the 14 victims and intentionally infected them.

But in Wednesday’s ruling, judges said while the victims all had HIV, it could not be proven that they were infected by the injections because they willingly took part in orgies where gay men unprotected sex.

The judges also said allegations the victims were given GHB, known as a “date rape” drug, were also unproven.

The suspects were not charged with attempted murder since Dutch courts have held that HIV is a chronic illness rather than an inevitably fatal one.

The Antilles was once a Dutch colony, but is now an autonomous republic within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Dutch law requires the kingdom’s three parts – the Netherlands, Aruba and the Dutch Antilles – to recognize each other’s legal documents, including marriage certificates. 

But the Antilles government contends the law also grants the island self-rule – and thus it should be permitted to ignore same-sex marriages from the Netherlands, which legalized such unions in 2001.

Last month, a court in the Antilles capital of Willenstad upheld the requirement that the government must recognized marriages performed in the Netherlands.

The Antilles government said the appeal was a matter of principle to determine just how far home-rule extends. Health Minister Omayra Leeflang said she fears the government couple also be forced to accept Dutch law regarding issues such as abortion and euthanasia.

The case that brought the issue to a head in the Antilles involved a woman who had been turned down by an insurance company when she tried to include her wife and one of her children in her health insurance policy.

The court ruled against the insurance company and ordered to insure the woman’s family, citing Netherlands law.

The Antilles government’s appeal to The Hague is unlikely to succeed, legal observers say, pointing to the failure of a similar case in 2005 that had been brought by the government of Aruba.