of view resulted in a less repressive attitude towards homosexuality and the legalization of adultery, abortion, and pornography. Prostitution was legalized in 1993. In Amsterdam, the city government acted rather pragmatic and tolerated the existence of gay bars. In 1952 even a gay dancing hall, called (De Odeon Kelder), was opened, followed in 1955 by the somewhat more decent dancing hall of gay rights organisation COC, called De Schakel. They both existed for over 30 years, attracted gay men from all over the world and making Amsterdam the Gay Capital of that time. In the 1960s, the number of gay bars grew rapidly and they clustered in and around a number of streets, although this was limited to bars, clubs and shops and they never became residential areas for gays, like the gay villages in the US. Since the late 1950s the main Amsterdam gay street was . Other streets in which there came a concentration of gay bars are Zeedijk, Amstel and Warmoesstraat, the latter being the center of the Amsterdam leather scene, where the first leather bar already opened around 1955. 1970–1999 In 1971, Article 248bis was repealed and in 1973 Dutch mental health institutions stopped treating homosexuality as an illness and the military lifted its ban on homosexuals. More Dutch LGBT people started to "come out", gay publications such as "Gay Krant" started to be published and the liberal and left-wing Dutch political parties started to support LGBT rights as part of an overall support of social tolerance and liberalism. In the early 1980s, succeeded Kerkstraat as the main Amsterdam gay street. In Reguliersdwarsstraat two of the first openly gay places opened: lunchroom Downtown, followed by the famous cafe April in 1981. Street parties were organized in which gay and straight people partied together and the gay scene became trendsetting for Dutch night life. Gay club iT in Amstelstraat became world-famous for its extravagant parties. Around 1983, the AIDS pandemic reached Amsterdam too, which prompted most Dutch gay men to change their sexual habits to practice safe sex, and eventually comprehensive sexual education was introduced into the public schools that resulted in a low rate of infection. In 1987, the world's first gay memorial in public space, the Homomonument, was opened in the centre of Amsterdam. It commemorates all gay men and lesbians who have been subjected to persecution because of their homosexuality. In 1993 the Dutch