Gay rights and homophobia are likely to be major issues in Poland’s delayed presidential election after the frontrunner pledged to “defend children from LGBT ideology”.
Andrzej Duda, the incumbent president, who is allied with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, made the pledge while launching a so-called “family charter”. The move appeared designed to energise the party’s conservative base as polls showed his lead narrowing.
After the vote was moved from 10 May to 28 June owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, entered the race, and polls suggest that in a run-off against Duda the vote could be split almost evenly.
Trzaskowski, of the centre-right Civic Platform, has been a supporter of LGBT rights as Warsaw mayor. He attended Warsaw’s pride event, the first time a mayor of the capital has done so.
PiS has been accused of democratic backsliding and erosion of the rule of law since winning a parliamentary majority in 2015. It has often hit out at gay rights and what it calls “LGBT ideology”, in rhetoric that is popular with parts of its base and the Catholic church.
Among other things, Duda’s new charter pledges no support for gay marriage or adoption by gay couples, with Duda describing the latter as part of “a foreign ideology”. It also seeks to “ban the propagation of LGBT ideology” in schools and public institutions – language reminiscent of a notorious Russian law targeting so-called “gay propaganda”.
There has been a concerted effort to portray the centrist Trzaskowski as an anti-Polish radical. Last week the pro-government weekly Sieci featured Trzaskowski on its cover wearing a rainbow armband and black hoodie, with the caption “the extremist candidate”.
Jacek Karnowski, the editor-in-chief of Sieci, said the magazine had chosen the cover because the politician was presenting himself as moderate when in fact, during his time as mayor of Warsaw, “he was trying to introduce LGBT ideology into schools and public life”. Karnowski said PiS was focusing on the LGBT issue because it “resonates on an emotional level” with a large part of the Polish population.
Government and church leaders have on various occasions compared “LGBT ideology” to communism, Nazism and the plague. Marek Jędraszewski, the archbishop of Kraków, used an address to mark the religious holiday of Corpus Christi on Thursday to denounce foreign ideologies that he said “undermine the institution of marriage and the family”.
The messaging does have an effect. In a survey last year, when asked to name the biggest threat to Poland, the most popular answer among men under 40 was “the LGBT movement and gender ideology”.
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