A new campaign in Poland shows the stories of LGBT parents and their children, in an effort to foster greater awareness, acceptance and understanding towards such “rainbow families” at a time of intense anti-LGBT rhetoric.
The “We are a family” (Jesteśmy rodziną) campaign was launched at the start of this month by Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude), an NGO that promotes LGBT rights. Its first video features couple Milena and Ola, along with boys Tadzik and Edzio.
Milena, who is the boys’ biological mother, describes how they have come to treat Ola as a mother too, while also remaining attached to their father, whom she was previously married to.
The couple speak of the difficulties they initially faced when coming out to their parents, but how they quickly gained acceptance. “For me, the most important thing is not someone’s orientation, but their character,” says Milena’s father in the film. “It matters only if you’re a good person.”
Ola and Milena say that coming out, not just themselves but as a family, was a “tough decision”, but a “cathartic and liberating” one. “It’s just sincerity with yourselves, your kids, and this relationship,” says Milena. “Why should you be ashamed of love?”
Łączy nas miłość, dzieli polskie prawo.
Poznaj nas i zobacz, że jesteśmy rodziną!Wejdź na https://t.co/aONfGNTn6A i dołącz do kampanii!
Razem możemy zmienić Polskę w kraj, w którym każda rodzina może żyć bezpiecznie. pic.twitter.com/V25eUv3GNS— Miłość Nie Wyklucza 🏳️🌈 (@milosc_) October 1, 2021
Miłość Nie Wyklucza will present further such stories over the next few months, as well as opinion polling on the public’s attitude towards LGBT rights and factual information on academic research into children raised by same-sex parents.
“Together we can change Poland into a country in which every family can live in safety,” says the organisation. “Children who live in rainbow families are [currently] not safe – not because they have two fathers or two mothers, but because their own country pretends they do not exist.”
Poland has for the last two years been ranked by ILGA-Europe, a Brussels-based NGO, as the worst country in the European Union for LGBT people in terms of their legal situation and the “social climate” they face.
The national-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has led a strident campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology”. It presents this as a threat being imported into Poland from abroad that undermines traditional families and is a particular danger to children.
PiS, as well as the influential Catholic church, has argued that only a mother and father can be parents to a child. The party’s chairman, Jarosław Kaczyński, in 2019 warned LGBT activists to “keep your hands off our children”.
“We must defend children, so that in Poland the normal family exists,” said Kaczyński. “Homosexual couples cannot experiment with children by adopting them.”
In Poland, same-sex couples are not permitted to marry nor form any other type of legally recognised civil partnership. They are also barred from adopting children.
Opinion polling has in recent years shown growing support for some LGBT rights, with a majority now backing the introduction of civil partnerships. However, only a small minority – less than 10% according to pollster CBOS – accept the idea of adoption by same-sex couples.
Miłość Nie Wyklucza hopes that stories like Milena and Ola’s – which show that “two mothers bringing up children even in a small town will soon meet with understanding” – can help to change attitudes.
“Polish society is much more ready than politicians believe,” the organisation’s co-chairman, Hubert Sobecki, told Gazeta.pl.
Main image credit: Miłość Nie Wyklucza
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.
