Poland's violence against gays - and drive for reproduction and expansion

Sixty-five gay and lesbian demonstrators were arrested in Poland's major city, Poznan, a week ago. On Saturday, November 24, 2005, demonstrations in support of the Poznan Parade of Equality will convene across Poland.

Poland breeds prejudices, bans, violences, children. The Polish parliament passed a bill of payments for bearing babies - in a country where abortion is illegal. Deputy PM and minister of interior expressed his "recognition to the police" for brutality towards a peaceful demonstration of lesbians and gays in the city of Poznan on November 19, 2005. Benjamin's spectre of gestaltlos police violence. The police stormed the Parade of Equality banned by Poznan mayor. The ban follows the example of Poland's president-elect, Lech Kaczynski who prohibited Warsaw gay parades in 2004 and 2005 when he was mayor of the capital.

In Poznan a week ago the police cordoned off the hundreds of lgbt activists who gathered together in the heart of the city. Homophobic skinheads swarmed around, pelted eggs and shouted at the activists: "Fags to gas," "We'll do to you what Hitler did to Jews."
The police stormed the gay and lesbian demonstrators. Sixty-five activists were arrested. Many of them were beaten. The activists were arrested and face the penalty of fine or imprisonment.

This is part of the anti-gay regime in Poland under the new government of the Law and Justice party headed by the Kaczynski twins. The far-right party won both the parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland and champions the anti-modern policy of the traditional family - Polish and Catholic.

In parliament the Law and Justice party co-operates with the League of Polish Families which has roots in the interwar anti-Semitism. The grandfather of the leader, Jedrzej Giertych was a racist politician and author of a book 'Towards Ending the Crisis' (1938), where he called for the expulsion of Jews from Poland. His father of the leader, Maciej Giertych, a League activist, publicly supports the religious conversion of gays from their homosexuality, and has translated the Homosexuality and Hope statement of the US Catholic Medical Association concerning "possibilities of change and the negative consequences associated with homosexual activity." Because of their rabid chauvinism, the books of Jedrzej and Maciej Giertych were withdrawn from Poland's stand at the 2000 Frankfurt Book Fair.
The League of Polish Families initiated the bill to stimuli financially Poland's birth rate. The Kaczynski twins and their Law and Justice party supported the bill. Abortion is banned in Poland, sexual education does not exist; instead religious instruction was introduced to schools without parliamentary debate. A spirit of reproductive and militaristic expansion thrives. Polish troops are in Iraq, U.S. prisons are in Poland.

Anti-gay, misogynic and xenophobic prejudices are bred. To counter them, on Saturday, November 24, 2005, demonstrations in support of the Poznan Parade of Equality will be held across Poland.

Tomek Kitlinski