Anti-gay Polish party secures election victory
Poland’s Law and Justice Party, which is staunchly opposed to LGBT rights, has won a decisive victory in the country’s election.
The right-wing party stormed to a victory in the Parliamentary elections, with exit polls suggesting it had won 39% of the vote, and a projected 242 of the parliament’s 460 seats.
Poland is already lagging behind most of Western Europe on LGBT rights, providing no recognition of same-sex relationships, banning same-sex marriage and adoption, and refusing to recognise trans people.
The party’s victory is likely to mean that there will continue to be no reforms on the issue, due to its hardline opposition and the homophobic views of many members.
Just last month, Polish President Andrzej Duda of the Law and Justice Party shattered the hopes of transgender people, by vetoing a bill which would have granted them legal gender recognition.
Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has claimed previously that “the affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilisation” – while officials have also compared homosexuality to “paedophilia, necrophilia and zoophilia”, stating that “this kind of behaviour, just like alcoholism and drug abuse should not be promoted”.
In 2013, a Law and Justice MP expressed his support for Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, claiming that Ugandans realise they shouldn’t “insult the laws of nature”.
The Law and Justice party has faced scrutiny in the past for its anti-LGBT views, due to the party’s alliance with the UK Conservatives in the European Parliament through the euro-sceptic European Conservatives and Reformers grouping.
