Polish anti-abortion campaigner who called homosexuality a ‘perversion’ taken to court
Polstat News
A group of Polish LGBT+ people have come together to bring a lawsuit against anti-abortion campaigner Kaja Godek, after she referred to homosexuality as a “perversion” on television.
The group, which is made up of 16 individuals and several organisations, say they are seeking protection of their personal rights.
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They claim that their dignity and personal rights were violated when Godek made the comments on the Polstat News station in May.
The group has called her remarks “utterly defamatory,” and said that Godek has yet to apologise for the hurt she inflicted on the gay community with her words.
Jakub Urbanik, one of the men who initiated the lawsuit, said he has “repeatedly been exposed to discriminatory statements” due to his sexual orientation.
“In both my private and professional life, I am faced with derogative jokes, comments or statements, implicit or explicit, that a gay person’s sexual behaviour is somehow inappropriate.
“This is painful, especially so given my job as an academic and teacher.”
He went on to call out Godek’s actions, saying her words reinforce “the same harmful opinions.”
He added that, as a lawyer and a teacher of law, he feels compelled to “fight back against such indignities, including in court, and not just for myself, but also on behalf of other gay people.”
A number of groups have also joined the lawsuit, including the Love Does Not Exclude Association, the Polish Society of Anti-Discrimination Law (PSAL), and Lambda Warsaw Association.
The groups and individuals behind the lawsuit say that they hope the proceedings help to establish a “new standard in judicial decisions” which would ensure that gay people whose rights are violated have legal protection.
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Godek is a well-known anti-abortion campaigner in Poland, and caused the controversy after she was invited on to a news show to discuss Ireland’s abortion referendum in May.
Speaking about the result, which was overwhelmingly in favour of legalising abortion, she said: “I want to say with strong conviction that Ireland cannot be described as a Catholic country.”
She went on to say that Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who is one of the world’s few openly gay leaders, was “a self-declared gay, who shows off his bizarre orientation.”
She went on to ask: “If pre-natal tests show that an embryo is homosexual, can you actually abort it?”
Polish society is socially conservative when it comes to LGBT+ rights. While same-sex activity is legal there, same-sex marriage is not constitutionally recognised.
