Councillors in the Polish town of Kraśnik have voted to withdraw the resolution declaring opposition to “LGBT ideology” that they introduced two years ago. The mayor had warned that not doing so would put the community at risk of losing millions of euros in grants from Norway.
“By repealing, we can take a very big step in overcoming our image crisis,” said Mayor Wojciech Wilk ahead of the vote, quoted by Dziennik Wschodni. “Whether fairly or not, we are not presented very sympathetically.”
“If we repeal this resolution, we have a better chance of obtaining external funds in the future”, continued Wilk, who is affiliated to the centrist Civic Platform (PO), the main national opposition party. “I mean especially Norwegian funds,” he added, saying that 35 million zloty (€7.7 million) was at stake.
Last year, Norway’s foreign minister, Ine Eriksen, announced that local authorities in Poland that have passed anti-LGBT resolutions will not receive money from the grants that her country provides to support civil society, the justice system, social inclusion, innovation and other causes.
Poland is the largest recipient of the so-called Norway Grants, and is budgeted to receive €411.5 million during the current 2014-2021 funding period (plus a further €397.8 million from the related EEA Grants, to which Norway is the main contributor).
In her statement, Eriksen specifically mentioned Kraśnik as a community that could see its funding suspended. It could have lost an estimated €3-10 million, according to Polish media.
Despite that threat, Kraśnik’s council last year voted by a majority of 11 to nine to keep its anti-LGBT resolution. Introduced in 2019, the document, which is symbolic and has no legal force, declared the town “free from LGBT ideology” and promised to combat “homopropaganda” and the “sexualisation of children”.
However, in the latest vote, which took place today, nine of 19 councillors present voted in favour of repeal. Six others favoured keeping the resolution, while four abstained. That means the resolution will be withdrawn, reports Dziennik Wschodni.
Among councillors from Poland’s nationally ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – which has led a strident anti-LGBT campaign and whose local officials are behind most anti-LGBT resolutions – three voted against repeal.
“We will face this [LGBT] ideology sooner than you think,” warned one of them, Wioletta Kudła. “Will Christ still find faith on Earth when he returns? It might well turn out that we are fighting against the Lord himself.”
However, four other PiS councillors either abstained or did not vote. That included the head of their delegation on the council, Jarosław Jamróz, who said that he was abstaining in order to “avoid disqualification” from Norway funds, which benefit the community.
A local LGBT activist from Kraśnik, Cezary Nieradko, who had appealed to councillors to withdraw the resolution, said after the vote that he was “very pleased with the decision, although it is rather late”. He noted that the town had already seen its image severely damaged.
Kraśnik was one of almost 100 local authorities in Poland that passed anti-LGBT resolutions in 2019. Though such places are often referred to by critics as “LGBT-free zones”, none of the resolutions specifically uses such language.
Around half express opposition to “LGBT ideology” – a term used by PiS to refer to what it claims is a dangerous set of ideas being imported into Poland, threatening Polish families, culture and even the nation itself.
Others are so-called “Charters of Family Rights” that do not mention LGBT specifically but reject same-sex marriage and call for the “protection of children from moral corruption”, language often used to suggest that the LGBT movement is a danger to Polish youth.
Earlier this year, the town of Nowa Dęba became the first place in Poland to withdraw a resolution declaring opposition to “LGBT ideology”. The head of the local council said it has been “exploited” to damage the town’s reputation.
However, this week the town council in Wilamowice, near Bielsko-Biała in southern Poland, voted narrowly to keep its resolution, despite the fact that it is likely to result in the loss of 7.3 million zloty in Norway Grants that were to be used to build a museum.
“I’m devastated,” said the town’s mayor, Marian Trela, quoted by Beskidzka24. His proposal for the resolution to be replaced by a similar one expressing support for families but removing references to LGBT was rejected by the council.
Main image credit: Max Bashyrov/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 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.
