President Andrzej Duda, who is standing for re-election next week, has announced that he will submit legislation for a constitutional amendment banning the adoption of children by couples in a same-sex relationship. He described such adoption as “experimentation” on and “enslavement” of children.
The president has also declared he will submit legislation intended to stop “hostile ideologies” from entering schools and “morally corrupting” children. His aim appears to be to limit certain forms of sex education, as well as fulfilling his early promise of banning “LGBT ideology” from state institutions.
In response, Duda’s election opponent, Rafał Trzaskowski, who has been a proponent of LGBT rights, declared today that he too opposes same-sex adoption. However, he accuses the president of using LGBT issues to distract attention from other matters.
“The Polish constitution should explicitly state that the adoption of a child by a person in a same-sex relationship is excluded,” said Duda this morning at a campaign event, quoted by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. “On Monday I will sign a presidential draft amendment to the constitution [to that effect].”
The president said that such the move was aimed to ensure “the protection of the child”. He added that, by “making clear that [same-sex adoption] is unacceptable”, it would “permanently stop political disputes over this issue” and “end the emotions” around the subject by making it clear that there is “no need to discuss” it anymore.
At another rally earlier in the week, Duda had declared he would “never allow children to be adopted by same-sex couples, because this is experimentation on children…This is enslavement of a child”.
Changing Poland’s constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, and an absolute majority of votes in the upper-house Senate.
Although the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party with which he is allied does not have those numbers, Duda said he is confident of attracting support from the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) and even conservative parts of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO).
In response to Duda’s announcement, his rival in next week’s run-off election, Rafał Trzaskowski of KO, has said that he “agrees with the president in this matter”. Trzaskowski has, as Warsaw mayor, expressed support for LGBT rights, including same-sex civil partnerships.
However, today he declared that he is “against the adoption of children by same-sex couples, and it seems to me that this is the position of most political parties”, reports RMF24.
Though Trzaskowski is sometimes himself described as a liberal, the coalition he represents includes more conservative elements. Trzaskowski is also aiming to pick up voters from the PSL and even Confederation ahead of the election run-off.
Opinion polls in Poland consistently show that, while support for same-sex civil partnerships has been rising, only a consistently small minority – less than 10% according to pollster CBOS – accept the idea of adoption by same-sex couples.
Given Trzaskowski’s previous support for LGBT rights – including becoming Warsaw’s first mayor to attend the city’s annual LGBT equality parade – Duda has sought to make opposition to make the issue a prominent feature of his campaign.
Last month, the president signed a “Family Charter” that pledged to “defend children from LGBT ideology”, the propagation of which would be “banned in public institutions”. Soon after, he declared LGBT to be a form of “neo-Bolshevism” that is “smuggled into schools” to “sexualise children”, and which is “even more dangerous to man [than] communist ideology”.
Yesterday, Duda followed this up with a more concrete declaration that he would be submitting legislation designed to prevent “hostile ideological content” from entering schools and “morally corrupting” children, reports Gazeta.pl.
His proposed bill, titled “Parents Decide”, would, claims the president, give parents a greater say in deciding whether outside parties are able to visit schools and conduct classes. Duda says this would fulfil the constitutional right of parents to ensure that children are raised in accordance with their own beliefs.
Though in yesterday’s announcement the president did not specify which kinds of activities in schools he was referring to, earlier in the week – and in his Family Charter – he has made clear that he wants parents to be able to stop their children receiving certain forms of sex education, which he condemns as “aggressive sexualisation of children”.
Conservatives in Poland, including members of PiS, have sought to portray modern sex education classes as part of efforts by LGBT groups to infiltrate schools and corrupt children. Some even suggest they are a means to prepare children for abuse.
PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński has condemned education programmes that “sexualise” and “degenerate” children. MPs from his party last year expressed support for a bill that, according to experts and the European Parliament, would effectively criminalise sex education.
In response to Duda’s “Parents Decide” initiative, Trzaskowski pointed out that parents already have the right to assess and decide on any extracurricular activities in schools. He accused the president of seeking to simply distract attention from other issues.
Duda has in recent days been facing controversy over news that he issued a presidential pardon to a man convicted of sexually abusing his underage daughter. The president has accused opponents of misrepresenting the story, and yesterday claimed that German-owned media were trying to make him lose the election.
Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
