Amsterdam - Amsterdam's gays are planning special Christmas celebrations this year with their first "Pink Christmas" festival due to start on Thursday.

The ten-day festival organized by the Dutch ProGay Foundation includes a special Christmas fair on December 21, a manger stall with two live Josephs and two live Marys, as well as a gay church mass on Christmas day.

Most of the activities are located in and around the Reguliersdwarsstraat, known for its many gay venues, in the old city centre.

During the accompanying film festival - the Pink Film Nights - more than hundred films will be shown in several cinemas throughout the city.

ProGay group chairman Frank van Dalen said the Pink Christmas was organized to help promote Amsterdam as a gay capital.

A study on anti-gay violence published last month found that homophobia is an ongoing problem in the Dutch capital, despite the Dutch reputation for tolerance.

The Christians for Truth organization has meanwhile requested the city and the organizers to cancel the event, arguing a Pink Christmas "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.

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

ProGay chairman Van Dalen however 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."

The Dutch legalized gay marriage in 2001, while adoption legislation does not differentiate between homosexual or heterosexual couples.