A proposed anti-LGBT law has been submitted to parliament. If passed, it would ban pride parades (known as equality marches in Poland), as well as any other public gatherings that “promote” non-heterosexual orientations and gender identities.
The bill has received support from parts of Poland’s influential Catholic church. Its arrival comes amid an anti-LGBT campaign led by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party since last year that has seen Poland ranked as the worst country in the EU for LGBT people in terms of legal rights and social climate.
The proposed law, entitled “Stop LGBT”, does not, however, emanate from PiS. It is a citizen’s legislative initiative – a type of bill that can be submitted to parliament if it receives the written supporting signatures of at least 100,000 citizens.
The bill – which in this case gathered over 200,000 signatures – must now receive a first reading in parliament within three months.
It would ban public assemblies that “promote”, among other things, “sexual orientations other than heterosexuality”, the idea of non-biological gender, same-sex marriage or civic partnerships, or the adoption of children by same-sex couples.
The text also includes a prohibition on assemblies that “violate public morality, including in particular [those] that may morally corrupt children or youths”.
The organisation behind the proposal, the Life and Family foundation, is led by Kaja Godek, a prominent anti-abortion activist. Godek was involved with previous legislative initiatives to ban abortion, which reached parliament in 2016 and 2017 but were shelved following mass women’s protests.
Last year, Godek stood unsuccessfully as an election candidate for the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja). After the party entered parliament, one of its leaders, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, promised that it would seek to “ban LGBT”.
Its “anti-LGBT law” would bring an end to “the promotion of deviancy under the protection of the Polish police”, said another of the party’s leading figures, Grzegorz Braun, quoted by Do Rzeczy. Braun also last year called for homosexuality to be criminalised and “sodomites sent to prison”.
In response to Godek’s proposed law, Krzysztof Bosak, a Confederation MP who recently stood as the party’s presidential candidate, told Polsat News today that “scandalous, obscene and vulgar activities should be banned in the public sphere”. But he added that he had not yet read the text of the bill itself.
Many Catholic priests helped the Life and Family foundation gather support for the legislation. A map created by activists has documented over 300 churches where signatures were collected.
The Archbishop of Szczecin, Andrzej Dzięga, encouraged parishes under his authority to help gather signatures. In an announcement read out from pulpits in his archdiocese, he “invited everyone to support this legislative initiative”.
“The purpose of the bill is to protect against LGBT propaganda[,]…gender ideology and practices that are contrary to nature,” he wrote. “It is also a manifestation of respect for the homeland, spiritual and patriotic values…[and] maintenance of moral order.”
In early September, the secretary general of the Polish Catholic episcopate wrote to bishops calling on them to take a “favourable approach” towards the “Stop LGBT” legislation.
However, the episcopate later denied this was an official position, and its president, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, forbade promotion of the bill on church grounds in his Poznań archdiocese, reports Wprost.
Although the ruling PiS party has led a vocal campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology”, its spokesman offered a lukewarm response to the new proposal to ban pride parades.
“I cannot imagine how the law would be formulated so that it would not violate the constitution,” Radosław Fogiel told Radio Zet today. “It feels like an attempt to stir up emotions that have subsided. This is not the best idea.”
A number of local councils under PiS control have passed resolutions declaring themselves to be “free from LGBT ideology”. In September, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński warned that, if Poland does not fight to protect its values, it could follow Ireland in becoming a “Catholic wilderness with rampant LGBT ideology”.
Poland last year hosted a record number of LGBT equality marches, with 24 taking place around the country, often in smaller towns holding them for the first time.
Until recently, the parades had been largely free of the nationalist aggression they had faced the past. However, amid rising anti-LGBT rhetoric, last year’s march in Białystok was violently attacked. In Lublin, police arrested a couple who had intended to use a home-made explosive against the city’s parade.
Conservative opponents of the parades accuse them of not only spreading ideas contrary to Polish values, but also of often profaning religious and national symbols.
Main image credit: Max Zieliński/Greenpeace (under CC BY-ND 2.0)
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.
