Simon Ostrovsky: Welcome to Pulawy. This working-class
Polish town about 85 miles south of Warsaw is among some 50 municipalities in
the country that have officially declared their opposition to LGBTs.
We’re meeting David Socha, a 20-year-old activist who lives here to find out
what it’s like to be gay in a city whose leadership has publically
come out against his community.
David Socha: They enacted a statement
about stopping the ideology pushed forward by the LGBT subculture. So they are basically calling LGBT people a subculture and
that this subculture has an ideology.
Simon Ostrovsky: The declaration is part of a broader push by the ruling right-wing
populist law and justice party to pull poles toward so-called traditional
values... And erode democratic norms in the process. The hallmark of the
campaign has been the assertion that LGBT people don’t actually
exist. According to law and justice, it’s simply an ideology.
In practical terms, for socha this has meant avoiding certain parts of town where
he’s afraid of getting jumped by skinheads and soccer fans that he believes
have been emboldened by the city’s - and increasingly the country’s - stance on
the LGBT community.
David Socha: They can say that they
are against discrimination, that they don't discriminate against people. But
the reality is they opened the gate for, uh, all the kind of hate. so it made me much more cautious when I walk around the city
because there have been incidents where, uh, my, uh, home was targeted.
Simon Ostrovsky: Socha’s street was plastered with anti-LGBT flyers and stickers
and he’s even been chased. He fears it’s only a matter of time before the
attacks turn violent.
In other parts of Poland they already have. Like this pride parade in the city
of Bialystok in 2019. Bart Staszewski filmed the
moment soccer hooligans pelted attendees with large paving stones on his gopro camera. He’s also an activist fighting for LGBT
equality in poland.
Socha’s street was plastered with anti-lgbt
flyers and stickers and he’s even been chased. He
fears it’s only a matter of time before the attacks turn violent. In other
parts of Poland they already have. Like this pride parade in the city of bialystok
in 2019.
Bart staszewski
filmed the moment soccer hooligans pelted attendees with large paving stones on
his gopro camera. He’s also an activist fighting for lgbt equality in Poland.
Bart Staszewski:
If we look on the map of Poland, it's one third
of Poland which created discriminatory acts against the people.
Simon Ostrovsky: When multiple communities across the country started enacting the anit-LGBT declarations in 2019 he hit on a creative way to
draw attention to the phenomenon.
BART STASZEWSKI,
ACTIVIST
I came into the idea to
create this photo project to came to each of those places, make
a photo of it and invite LGBT people who are actual living there to join me and
to pose to the photo and to share their story.
Staszewski created a realistic-looking road sign that he hung up at the city
limits to mock the towns as LGBT-free zones. It
was an instant viral internet hit in Poland—and soon drew the ire of the
country’s ruling party.
Bart Staszewski:
Suddenly became the national enemy by the prime
minister, who was accusing me of lies, anti-Polish lies.
Simon Ostrovsky: Poland's slide towards authoritarianism hasn't been without
pushback. Other countries in the European Union have noticed the changing
attitudes about women's rights, the independence of the courts and the
protection of the LGBT community's rights. Here in Pulawy,
for example, where an anti LGBT resolution was passed, two cities in Europe,
which were twinned with Pulawy, ended their
partnership with the municipality in protest.
Six other European
cities cancelled twinning applications with Polish municipalities that have
enacted the declarations. And it’s not just symbolic, some EU funding was also
suspended.
Although they do not
carry the force of law, these texts aren’t for the faint of heart. Pulawy’s declaration is titled “On Halting the Ideology
Pushed by the LGBT Subculture.” It effectively equates homosexuality with
pedophilia declaring that the city administration is committed to “Doing
everything to stop perverts who are interested in the early sexualization of
Polish children and adolescents.”
This divisive style of
politics has pitted Poles against one another in a way not seen since the
collapse of communism in this country.
According to Poland's
outgoing human rights ombudsman Adam Bodnar, it's all part of a broader effort
by the government to erode the country's hard won democratic norms. The ruling
party has done everything to weaken the parliament and the courts while at the
same time raising the profile of divisive political issues that rally its base.
Adam Bodnar: So I remember well that in 2016, like that hot topic was the
question of refugees and the migration crisis in Europe. And at that time the
Polish government was presenting this as a huge threat to Polish identity,
Christianity, conservative values. Later on, it
appeared that the useful political coin is protection of LGBT rights. So
sometimes we see that the government is trying to make something like a culture
war in the society just by raising the profile of the issue and by presenting
some arguments against LGBT persons.
Simon Ostrovsky: This tactic regularly sparks outcry among supporters of the LGBT
community who most recently protested outside the education ministry after
Poland's education minister criticized one of Poland's many pride parades that
took place this summer - as a fetish.
Przemyslaw Czarnek: Every Pole can see
exactly what is happening in these streets and know what equality is, what
tolerance is, but what happened there has nothing to do with equality or
tolerance. This is a fetish and a distortion of equality and tolerance.
Simon Ostrovsky: Aleksandra Iwanowska is an 18-year old high school student who participated in the
protest outside the minister’s office.
Aleksandra Iwanowska: He
basically follows the line introduced in the 2020 presidential elections, that
LGBT+ community is not a community. It's an ideology. And I've had actually my friends being called out, even physically abused
on the streets because they wore something rainbow. I'm just angry at the fact
that it takes guts in Poland to hold your girlfriend or your boyfriend by a
hand in public.
Simon Ostrovsky: Poland’s deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński defended his government’s stance in an interview with NewsHour
Weekend.
Simon Ostrovsky: The law and Justice Party leadership have repeatedly declared
that members of the LGBT community aren't people and
that LGBT is simply an ideology, suggesting that there's no such a thing as gay
people.
Paweł Jabłoński: Nobody said such a thing, that members of the LGBT community or
any other community are not people. They were saying that LGBT ideology is
something entirely different from particular people because there is a
political movement behind it. LGBT movement intends to change the definition of
marriage, for example. This is a political agenda. One can agree with that or one can disagree with that. And I don't see any
problem with declaring that this is simply an ideology which we do not agree
with because it's inconsistent.
Simon Ostrovsky: Why don't you declare that heterosexuality is an ideology?
Paweł Jabłoński: Because this ideology is inconsistent with our Constitution, we
very often hear how important is the rule of law, how
important to observe the rights that are prescribed in our Constitution. And
our Constitution is very clear about this, that marriage is a union of women
and men.
Simon Ostrovsky: Jabłoński’s claim that law and
justice never say LGBTs are not people is easily disproved. Here’s Polish
president Andrzej Duda speaking at a rally of
supporters during his latest election campaign last year, in which he accused
the LGBT rights movement of promoting a viewpoint more harmful than communism.
Andrzej Duda: They are trying to tell us that they are
people, but this is just an ideology.
Simon Ostrovsky: Poland’s human rights ombudsman argues that the government’s
stance on LGBTs threatens not just democracy in Poland but the unity of the EU as a whole. If Poland doesn’t have to protect its
minority groups, why should other member states have to uphold democratic
norms?
Adam Bodnar: And at the end of the day, you do not have a Europe of values
based on rule of law, on LGBT rights, on protection of different minorities, on
democratic values. But you have a loose confederation of states that are not
following the same values on which the European Union is built. So that is why
I claim that it is an existential threat for the European Union.
Simon Ostrovsky: Back in Pulawy, the fate of the EU might
be the last thing on people’s minds. Here the values of the Catholic Church
hold more sway. On a notice board outside the local cathedral, a poster warns
the faithful of dangerous symbols to avoid. The peace sign, a satanic emblem,
apparently, and the unicorn, representing lesbian love and group sex, according
to the clergy.
David Socha: The
hooligans wanted to target us and you know, harm us.
They pointed at me and said ‘oh, it’s this fag!’
yeah, they basically tried to beat me up. They mentioned my surname and said
‘we remember Socha’ so they know who I am, basically.
Simon Ostrovsky: Until attitudes like this change in Poland, people like Socha will continue to feel like they have a target on
their back.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER
THIRD |
1 |
00:27 |
DAVID SOCHA ACTIVIST |
2 |
02:25 |
BART STASZEWSKI ACTIVIST |
3 |
03:07 |
PULAWY, POLAND SIMON OSTROVSKY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT |
4 |
04:41 |
ADAM BODNAR HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN |
5 |
05:36 |
PRZEMYSLAW CZARNEK EDUCATION MINISTER |
6 |
05:59 |
ALEKSANDRA IWANOWSKA STUDENT |
7 |
06:54 |
PAWEL JABLONSKI DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER OF POLAND |
8 |
08:05 |
PRESIDENT ANDRZEJ DUDA POLAND |
9 |
08:29 |
ADAM BODNAR HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN |