Polish education minister retracts statement linking “LGBT ideology” to Nazism after legal action

Poland’s education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, has issued a statement retracting remarks on television and radio in which he linked “LGBT ideology” to Nazism and said that “these people are not equal to normal people”.

It remains unclear exactly why Czarnek – a leading figure in the Polish government’s anti-LGBT campaign – has issued the statement, which is dated 21 July, today. But it includes an apology to Jakub Urbanik, a legal scholar at the University of Warsaw and LGBT+ rights activist who sued the minister for his statements.

“I the undersigned, Przemysław Czarnek, minister of education and science, retract the words used on 13 June 2020 on TVP Info and on 3 August 2020 on Radio Maryja, while remaining true to my views,” wrote the minister.

“It was not my intention to offend anyone, including people from the LGBT+ community, in particular Prof. Jakub Urbanik,” he added. “I acknowledge that the way my statements were phrased resulted in Prof. Jakub Urbanik taking them personally, which was not my intention, and for which I apologise to him.”

Oświadczenie ws. sporu z prof. Jakubem Urbanikiem pic.twitter.com/CXSJRLDEUG

— Przemysław Czarnek (@CzarnekP) September 28, 2022

The remarks in question, made when Czarnek was already an MP for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party but not yet education minister, included claims that “LGBT ideology comes from the same roots as Nazism” and that its adherents “are not equal to normal people” so we should “stop listening to this idiocy about human rights or equality”.

In response, Urbanik launched legal action against Czarnek in 2020, claiming that the minister had violated his personal rights. He sought an apology from Czarnek to be broadcast on the TVP and TVN channels and published in two newspapers, as well as a 20,000 zloty donation to an NGO campaigning for marriage equality, reports Onet.

“Nobody can use this kind of language – especially an academic teacher, because his fundamental duty is to protect his students,” said Urbanik at the time. As well as being a politician, Czarnek is also a professor of law at the Catholic University of Lublin.

“If today we agree to the exclusion of specific groups, we don’t know what will happen next, when the LGBT witch hunt is no longer a hot topic,” added Urbanik. “Who will be the next common enemy? Who will populist hatred gather around?”

Upon Czarnek’s appointment as education ministry in 2020, hundreds of academics in Poland signed an appeal calling for him to be dismissed over his “antisemitic, misogynist” and homophobic views. International scholars called for him to be boycotted.

Czarnek has, however, remained in his position and continued to make derogatory remarks about LGBT people. Last year, he condemned LGBT pride parades for “promoting deviancy” and against said that those who do so “do not have the same rights” as “normal people”.

In recent years, the ruling PiS party has led a campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology”, which it presents as a threat to Poland’s tradition, culture and even very existence. As a result of its actions, Poland has for the last three years been ranked as the EU’s worst country for LGBT people.