Seeking security, Dutch turn to Bible Belt

By Alexandra Hudson

STAPHORST, Netherlands (Reuters) - Just 90 minutes' drive from Amsterdam and its temptations is a village so devout that swearing is banned, women refuse to wear trousers and the bank machine does not dispense cash on a Sunday.

The Netherlands, best known abroad for its liberal policies on sex, drugs and homosexuality, is also home to a Protestant "Bible Belt" mapped out by villages such as Staphorst.

Now a small political party long associated with the Bible Belt, the Christen Unie (United Christians or CU), is benefiting from a surge of support outside its rural heartland triggered by nostalgia for a more moral, compassionate society.

After almost doubling its vote in last November' general election to 4 percent, the CU has become the kingmaker in the Netherlands' new centrist coalition government, a feat unthinkable at the time of the previous election in 2003.

"Society has opted for more traditional values, for principles such as security and community feeling," said Gerard Vroegindeweij, a political correspondent with the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a Protestant newspaper.

"There is a sense that these values continued to flourish in the countryside whereas they vanished in the city."

AUSTERE

In Staphorst, where the council is dominated by the CU and an even more orthodox Protestant party, the SGP, the well-kept thatched houses, bright-green doors, and austere mood are seen as the epitome of a rural Dutch settlement.