European Desires and National Bedrooms? Negotiating “Normalcy” in Postsocialist Poland

Abstract

Only a few years ago rights of sexual minorities in Poland caused not only national controversies over what democracy means, but also gained international attention, visible in demonstrations in front of embassies in Berlin and London, wide media coverage, and protest letters to the Polish prime minister by the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights as well as Amnesty International and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). Several Polish politicians were repeatedly cautioned for their extreme conservative stance on homosexual issues and homophobic remarks as well as criticized for the prohibitions of the so-calledMarsz Równości(Equality March), the Polish version of the Christopher Street Day (usually known as Gay Pride Parade) as being against the standards of democracy and human rights. Finally, and in particular as a reaction to the various remarks of Polish politicians, a resolution against homophobia was submitted to the European Parliament in January 2006 and passed in June 2006. Despite the resolution, the then Polish minister of education, Roman Giertych (League of Polish Families, or LPR), caused another great stir at the European Union (EU) conference of ministers of education in Heidelberg, Germany, on March 1, 2007, when he stated that brochures on sexuality education published by the Council of Europe that contained information on homosexuality and homosexual relations were to be prohibited in Polish schools. In the same speech, he rebuked societies that allowed abortion on social grounds and called abortion a “legal crime” and a “new form of barbarism.”