LGBT rights in Poland

History

There was never any anti-homosexual law under a free Polish government (excluding homosexual prostitution 1932–1969).

During the Partitions of Poland (1795–1918) laws prohibiting homosexuality were imposed by the occupying powers. Homosexuality was recognized by law in 1932 with the introduction of a new penal code. The age of consent was set to 15, equal to that of heterosexual partners. Homosexual prostitution was legalized in 1969.

Homosexuality was deleted from the list of diseases in 1991.

Acceptance for LGBT people in Polish society increased in the 1990s and early 2000s, mainly amongst younger people and those living in larger cities such as Warsaw and Kraków. There exists a "gay scene" with clubs all around the country, most of them are located in the large urban areas. There are also a number of gay rights organizations, the two biggest ones being Campaign Against Homophobia and Lambda Warszawa.

In October 2011, Poland elected its first openly gay member of parliament Robert Biedroń, as well as its first transgender MP, Anna Grodzka. In 2014, Biedroń was elected the mayor of Słupsk; town mayors in Poland are elected directly.

Recent developments

In January 2013, the Sejm voted to reject five proposed bills that would introduce civil partnerships for both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. The High Court later issued an opinion stating that the bills proposed by the Alliance of the Democratic Left, Palikot's Movement and Civic Platform were all unconstitutional, as Article 18 of the Constitution protects marriage.

In December 2014, the Sejm refused to deal with a civil partnership bill proposed by Your Movement, with 235 MPs voting against debating the bill, and 185 MPs voting for.

In May 2015, the Sejm again refused to deal with the topic, with 215 MPs voting against and only 146 for. The Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, said that civil partnerships are an issue for the next parliament to deal with.

Public laws

The right of consenting adults to engage in homosexuality was recognized, by law, in 1932 with the introduction of a new penal code. The age of consent was set to 15, equal to that of heterosexual partners. Homosexual prostitution was legalized in 1969.

Recognition of same-sex relationships

There is no legal recognition of same-sex couples. Same-sex marriage is constitutionally banned. Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman and places it under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland.

In late 2003, Polish Senator Maria Szyszkowska proposed civil unions for same-sex couples, calling for "registered partnerships", similar to the French Pacte civil de solidarité (PACS). On 3 December 2004, the Senate (the upper chamber of the Polish Parliament) adopted the Civil Unions project. The bill lapsed in the 2005 general election.

In 2004, Warsaw's Municipal Transport Authority decision to allow cohabiting partners of gay and lesbian employees to travel free on the city's public transport system was the first case of recognition of same-sex couples in Poland. In 2007, a decision of Chorzów’s City Center of Social Assistance recognized homosexual relationships.

On 23 February 2007, the verdict of the Appeals Court in Białystok recognized same-sex cohabitation (File I ACa 590/06). On 6 December 2007, it was confirmed by Judgement of The Supreme Court of Warsaw (IV CSK 301/2007and IV CSK 326/2007).

At the end of 2010, the Court in Złotów decided that the same-sex partner of a woman who had died was entitled to continue the lease on their communal apartment. The municipality appealed the verdict, but the District Court in Poznań rejected the appeal. Thus, the decision of the Court in Złotów became final. In support of the judge relied, for the first time, on the European Convention on Human Rights, which had ruled in Kozak v. Poland that gays and lesbians have the right to inherit from their partners. Another similar case about the right to housing of a deceased male partner is pending in the Court in Warsaw. However, in this case the District Court refused to recognise the tenancy law for the partner of the deceased tenant although earlier (2010), the Court in Strasbourg had ruled that this was discrimination.

The major opposition to introducing same-sex marriages or civil unions comes from the Roman Catholic Church, which is influential politically, holding a considerable degree of influence in the state. The Church also enjoys immense social prestige. The Church holds that homosexuality is a deviation. The nation is 95% Roman Catholic, with 54% practicing every week.

Discrimination protections

Anti-discrimination laws were added to the Labour Code in 2003. The Polish Constitution guarantees equality in accordance with law and prohibits discrimination based on "any reason". The proposal to include a prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the constitution in 1995 was rejected, after strong Catholic Church objections.

In 2007, an anti-discrimination law was under preparation by the Ministry of Labour that would prohibit discrimination on different grounds, including sexual orientation, not only in work and employment, but also in social security and social protection, health care, and education, although the provision of and access to goods and services would only be subject to a prohibition of discrimination on grounds of race or ethnic origin. On 1 January 2011, a new law on equal treatment has entered into force. It only prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in employment. In September 2015, Amnesty International concluded that "the LGBTI community in Poland faces widespread and ingrained discrimination across the country" and that "Poland’s legal system falls dangerously short when it comes to protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and other minority groups from hate crimes".

Military service

Gay people are not banned from military service. There is an unwritten "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the Polish Armed Forces.

Social attitudes and public opinion

A survey from 2005 found 89% of the population stating that they considered homosexuality an unnatural activity. Half believed homosexuality should be tolerated.

An opinion poll conducted in late 2006 at the request of the European Commission indicated Polish public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed to same-sex marriage and to adoption by gay couples. The Eurobarometer 66 poll found that 74% and 89% of Poles respectively were opposed to same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples. Of the EU member states surveyed, only Latvia and Greece had higher levels of opposition. A poll in July 2009 showed that 87% of Poles were against gay adoption. A poll from 23 December 2009 for Newsweek Poland reported another shift towards more positive attitudes. Sixty percent of respondents stated that they would have no objections to having an openly gay minister or a head of the government.

A 2010 study published in the newspaper Rzeczpospolita revealed that Poles overwhelmingly oppose same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by gay couples. 80% of Poles opposed same-sex marriage and 93% of Poles opposed the adoption of children by same-sex couples.

In 2010, an IIBR opinion poll conducted for Newsweek Poland found that 43% of Poles agreed that openly gay people should be banned from military service. 38% thought that such a ban should not exist in the Polish Army.

A majority of Poles also oppose Pride parades – a 2008 study revealed that 66% of Poles believe that gay people should not have the right to organize public demonstrations, 69% of Poles believe that gay people should not have the right to show their way of life. Also, 37% of Poles believe that gay people should have the right to engage in sexual activity, with 37% believing they should not.

In 2011, according to a poll by TNS Polska, 54% of Poles supported same-sex partnerships while 27% supported same-sex marriage.

In a 2013 opinion poll conducted by CBOS, 68% of Poles were against gays and lesbians publicly showing their way of life, 65% of Poles were against same-sex civil unions, 72% were against same-sex marriage and 88% were against adoption by same-sex couples.

In a CBOS opinion poll from August 2013, a majority (56%) of respondents stated that homosexuality is "always wrong and can never be justified". 26% stated that "there is nothing wrong with it and can always be justified". 12% were indifferent.

A CBOS opinion poll from February 2014 found that 70% of Poles believe same-sex sexual activity is morally unacceptable, while only 22% believed it is morally acceptable.

Attitude of politicians

The parties on the left of the political scene generally approve of the postulates of the gay rights movement and would vote in favour of the new LGBT legislation. The Democratic Left Alliance (4th largest party), are supporters of gay rights and same-sex marriage. The PO, PiS and PSL are generally against any changes in legislation, although of them, PiS takes the strongest oppositional stance on homosexual issues.

Law and Justice

After the 2005 elections, Law and Justice (PiS) came to power. They formed a coalition government with the League of Polish Families (LPR) and the Self-Defence Party (Samoobrona). The politicians of these parties have often been labelled "homophobic" by LGBT rights activists, both before and after the 2005 elections. Prominent government figures have said things that might not have pleased the LGBT community in Poland and Europe.:

"Let’s not be misled by the brutal propaganda of homosexuals’ postures of tolerance. It is a kind of madness, and for that madness, our rule will indeed be for them a dark night"

"If a person tries to infect others with their homosexuality, then the state must intervene in this violation of freedom."

"If deviants begin to demonstrate, they should be hit with batons."

On 5 July 2006, Miroslaw Kochalski stated, in relation to the Parada Rownosci, that the march was "immoral and a danger to the inhabitants of Warsaw."

On 7 August 2006, Paweł Zyzak, editor in chief of a PiS magazine, Right Turn!, wrote that homosexuals are "animals" and "the emissaries of Satan sent to destroy the Catholic Church".

In the city of Koscierzyna, Waldemar Bonkowski, a leading member of PiS, hung up a banner that read "Today it’s gays and lesbians -- what’s next, zoophilia? Is that liberty and democracy? No, that’s syphilisation! Our Polish pope is looking down from the sky and asking, Whither goest thou, Poland?" on the wall of the local party headquarters.

Lech Kaczyński

During the presidential campaign before the 2005 Presidential election, Lech Kaczyński, who won the elections, stated that he would continue to ban LGBT demonstrations, as he did while Mayor of Warsaw, and that "public promotion of homosexuality will not be allowed".

Presidential address

On 17 March 2008 Kaczyński delivered a presidential address to the nation on public television, in which he described same-sex marriage as an institution contrary to the widely accepted moral order in Poland and the moral beliefs of the majority of the population. The address featured a wedding photograph of an Irish gay rights activist, Brendan Fay and Tom Moulton, which Kaczyński had not sought permission to use. The presidential address outraged left-wing political parties and gay rights activists, who subsequently invited the two to Poland and demanded apologies from the president, which he did not issue.

Jarosław Kaczyński

On 30 August 2006, during a visit to the European Commission, Lech's twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński, as the Prime Minister of Poland, stated that "people with such preferences have full rights in Poland, there is no tradition in Poland of persecuting such people". He also asked the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso "not to believe in the myth of Poland as an anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophobic country".

Jarosław Kaczyński has been less harsh in his descriptions of homosexuality. In one interview he stated that he had always been "in favour of tolerance" and that "the issue of intolerance towards gay people had never been a Polish problem". He said he did not recall gays being persecuted in the Polish People's Republic more severely than other minority groups and acknowledged that many eminent Polish celebrities and public figures of that era were widely known to be homosexual. Jarosław Kaczyński also remarked that there are a lot of gay clubs in Poland and that there is a substantial amount of gay press and literature. In another interview abroad, he invited the interviewer to Warsaw to visit one of the many gay clubs in the capital. He also confirmed that there are some homosexuals in his own party, but said they would rather not open their private lives to the public. This was also confirmed by the Member of the European Parliament from PiS, Tadeusz Cymański.

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz

As Prime Minister in the PiS-led cabinet, Marcinkiewicz was often labelled "homophobic" for his statements regarding homosexual people. In October 2005, he stated homosexuality was "unnatural" and stated that "if a person tries to infect others with their homosexuality, then the state must intervene in this violation of freedom."

In a 2009 interview for Gazeta Wyborcza, former Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz stated that his opinion about homosexual people changed when he met a Polish gay emigrant in London. The man stated that he "fled from Poland because he was gay and would not have freedom in his country". Marcinkiewicz concluded that he wouldn't want anyone to flee from Poland.

Andrzej Duda

In a 2015 interview, President-elect of Poland, Andrzej Duda, originally from the PiS party, was asked if he would hire a homosexual. He answered that he would not care about personal relationships, as long as the person who was to be hired was not running around half-naked.

Andrzej Duda also stated that "matters that are vital for society are not dealt with while others, undoubtedly connected with the leftist ideology, are being pushed forward. They are, in my view, destroying the traditional family which, since the dawn of mankind, has assured its development and endurance."

League of Polish Families

In the 2005 election, the League of Polish Families (LPR) won 8% of the vote and 34 seats in the Sejm. They entered into a coalition government with PiS and Samoobrona.

On 19 May 2006, Mirosław Orzechowski, Deputy Minister of Education, stated that an international project organized by LGBT NGOs and financially supported by the European Commission Youth Programme would lead to the "depravity of young people".

Wojciech Wierzejski

Wojciech Wierzejski was a Member of the European Parliament, and then a Deputy of the Sejm from the League of Polish Families. In June 2005, while in the European Parliament, he called for "no tolerance for homosexuals and deviants".

On 11 May 2006, while an MP, Wierzejski condemned the Warsaw Parada Równości. While condemning the parade, he stated the "deviants" should be "hit with batons". He also commented on the possible presence of German politicians at the parade, saying that "they are not serious politicians, but just gays and a couple of baton strikes will deter them from coming again. Gays are cowards by definition."

A day later, he wrote a letter to the Minister of the Interior and Administration and the Minister of Justice, in which he called for law enforcement agencies to check the legal and illegal sources of financing of the organizations of homosexual activists. He accused LGBT organisations of being involved with paedophiles and the illegal drug trade. He also wished to check if homosexual organisations penetrate Polish schools. In response to this, the State Prosecutor ordered all prosecutors to carefully check the financing of LGBT organizations, their alleged connections to criminal movements and their presence in schools.

On 2 June 2006, a complaint about Wierzejski's statements had been rejected by the Warsaw district prosecutor, because "the statements cannot be treated as threatening or encouraging to crime".

Roman Giertych

On 8 June 2006, Roman Giertych, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and Minister of Education, dismissed Mirosław Sielatycki, the director of the National In-Service Teacher Training Centre because "a lot of books were encouraging teachers to organize meetings with LGBT non-governmental organizations such as Campaign Against Homophobia or Lambda" and because "these books were criticising the legal situation in most of European countries, including Poland, in relation to non-recognition of ‘gay marriage’ as being a form of discrimination". The new director of the centre said that "Homosexual practices lead to drama, emptiness and degeneracy."

On 21 May 2006, Roman Giertych said that "LGBT organizations are sending transsexuals to kindergartens and asking children to change their sex".

In March 2007 Roman Giertych proposed a bill that would ban homosexual people from the teaching profession and would also allow sacking those teachers who promote "the culture of homosexual lifestyle". At that time Giertych was a deputy prime minister and a minister of education from a small right-wing and ultra-Catholic party, the League of Polish Families, a coalition partner in the Law and Justice government. The proposition gained a lot of attention in the media and was widely condemned by the European Commission, by Human Rights Watch as well as by the Union of Polish Teachers, who organized a march through Warsaw (attended by 10,000 people) condemning the ministry's policy. The bill was not voted on, and the government soon failed, leading to new parliamentary elections in which the League of Polish Families won no parliamentary seats. Giertych retired from politics and returned to his work as an attorney.

Public opinion

In 2007, PBS conducted an opinion poll associated with Roman Giertych's speech at a meeting of EU education ministers in Heidelberg. The pollster asked respondents if they agreed with Minister Giertych's statements:

Lech Wałęsa

In 2013, former President and Nobel prize winner Lech Wałęsa said that gay MPs should sit at the back of the parliament or even behind a wall and should not have important positions in Parliament. He also said that pride parades should not take place in the city centres, but in the suburbs of cities. The former President also stated that minorities should not impose themselves upon the majority. Wałęsa could not have been accused of inciting to hatred because the Polish penal code doesn't include inciting to hatred against sexual orientation.

Parada Równości

The largest aspect of LGBT movement in Poland is the equality parade held in Warsaw every year since 2001.

In 2004 and 2005 Warsaw officials denied permission to organize it, because of various reasons including the likelihood of counter-demonstrations, interference with religious or national holidays, and the lack of a permit. Despite this, about 2,500 people marched illegally on 11 June 2005. Ten people were arrested. The ban has been declared illegal by the Bączkowski v Poland ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in 2007.

The parade was condemned by the Mayor of Warsaw Lech Kaczyński, who said that allowing an official pride event in Warsaw would promote a "homosexual lifestyle".

The "Parada Równości" events have continued regularly since 2006, attracting crowds of less than 10,000 every year, until 2015 when parade attracted 18 thousand attendees.

Public opinion

The people of Warsaw are divided on the subject, but there was never a majority for the parade. The most recent opinion poll, conducted by PBS for Gazeta Wyborcza, shows that 45% of Warsaw supports the parade.

In 2005, 33% were for the organisation of the "Parada Równości", in 2008, that figure fell to 25%.

Tęcza

The Warsaw rainbow was an artistic construction in the form of a giant rainbow made of artificial flowers, designed by Polish artist Julita Wójcik, located on St. Saviour Square in the Polish capital of Warsaw since summer 2012.

As the rainbow symbol is also associated with the LGBT movement, locating the Tęcza in the Savior Square in Warsaw has proved controversial. It has been damaged five times as of November 2013, with the usual method of vandalism being arson. The installation was damaged on 13 September 2012, 1 January 2013 (this one was ruled to be an accidental fireworks damage), 4 January 2013, July 2013 and once again during marches on Polish Independence Day on 11 November 2013. The November 2013 incident occurred in the background of a wider demonstration by right-wing activists, who clashed with police and vandalized other parts of the city as well, also attacking the Warsaw's Russian embassy.

The installation has been criticized by conservative and right-wing figures. Law and Justice politician Bartosz Kownacki derogatorily called the installation a "faggot rainbow" (pedalska tęcza). Another Law and Justice politician, Stanisław Pięta, complained that this "hideous rainbow had hurt the feelings of believers" (attending the nearby Church of the Holiest Saviour). Priest Tadeusz Rydzyk of Radio Maryja fame, described it as a "symbol of deviancy".

Following the November 2013 incident, reconstruction of the Tęcza has garnered support from left-wing and liberal groups President of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz from the Civic Platform, declared that the installation "will be rebuilt as many times as necessary". Several Polish celebrity figures have endorsed the installation, such as Edyta Górniak, Katarzyna Zielińska, Monika Olejnik and Michał Piróg; it has also been endorsed by the Swedish ambassador to Poland and LGBT activist Staffan Herrström.

In the end of August 2015 the installation was permanently removed.

Public opinion

In a 2014 survey conducted by CBOS for Dr. Natalia Zimniewicz, 30% of Poles wanted a ban on public promotion of gay content, and 17.3% would not support that ban, but would want another form of limiting the freedom of promotion of such information.

52.5% thought that the current scale of promotion of gay content is excessive, 27.9% thought that pictures of gay parades or practices disgust them, 22.3% think that the media blur the true image of homosexuality and 29.3% thought that gay content is not a private matter of the homosexual community, but affect children and other citizens.