With conservative elements in Poland attacking the LGBTQ community, the European Parliament slammed the country for creating “anti-LGBTQ zones.”
The battle against the so-called Western “LGBTQ ideology” is being led by the far-right ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party after the recent 2019 parliamentary elections last October.
Anti-LGBTQ zones springing up in Polish regions
Currently, there are 30 zones that have declared themselves “LGBTQ-free” comprising of over 80 municipalities, counties, and provinces.
As a result, the European Parliament wants to address EU grants being given to Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
The EU assembly voted 463 against 107 on a motion urging Warsaw to “revoke all resolutions” that target the LGBTQ community in Poland.
EU lawmakers also called on the EU to control the use of EU funds as a reminder “that such funds should not be used for discriminatory ends.”
Likewise, they said the zones are part of “a broader context of attacks against the LGBTI community in Poland.”
They also expressed deep concern “at the growing number of attacks on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and intersexuals in the EU by states, officials, national and local governments as well as politicians.”
Poland’s anti-LGBTQ zones to promote discrimination
The local Polish authorities in these “anti-LGBTQ zones” promise to refrain from promoting tolerance and providing financial assistance to NGOs working to promote equal rights.
Activists said these actions– while not legally binding– stigmatize and exclude members of the LGBTQ community in these zones.
Earlier, PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski had said: “We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children—the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender.”
“They today actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state,” Kaczynski declared.
In July of this year, the Polish conservative newspaper Gazeta Polska issued “LGBT-free zone” stickers to shops and businesses to display.
The Warsaw District Court later ordered the magazine to cease this action.
Poland’s spreading battle for LGBTQ equal rights
The zones were reportedly in reaction to Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski’s declaration of support for LGBTQ rights last February 2019.
Trzaskowski also said his administration would follow World Health Organization guidelines to integrate LGBT issues into their school sex education curricula.
In reaction to this, Kaczyński said LGBTQ rights were “an import” that threatened Poland.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Kraków Marek Jędraszewski said on August 2019 that the LGBT people were like a “rainbow plague” during a sermon that marked the Warsaw uprising.
Feminist scholar Agnieszka Graff said these attacks on the LGBTQ was just an excuse by the PiS to seek votes from the rural-traditional demographic to replace migrants as their scapegoats.