Eastern Europe was once a world lear on gay rights. Then ran out of spegoats | CNN

Contents:

• EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS
• POLAND’S POPULISTS PICK A NEW TOP ENEMY: GAY PEOPLE

EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAn latn verbal attacks by the Polish ernment, wh the support of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the threat of physil vlence on the streets of many ci, has triggered an exod of gay Mucha for The New York TimFor months, ernment misters spewed vic rhetoric about gay people.

POLAND’S POPULISTS PICK A NEW TOP ENEMY: GAY PEOPLE

Fally fed up wh an creasgly hostile environment for gay people Poland unr the erng Law and Jtice party, Marta Malachowska, a 31-year-old who works social media, cid to move to Berl wh her girliend December. But now their numbers are beg add to by gay people fleeg an creasgly hostile environment Limowicz for The New York TimAcrdg to a 2020 survey by ILGA-Europe, an ternatnal gay rights anizatn, Poland now ranks as the most homophobic untry the European Unn. Activists say that vlence agast gay people Poland surged last year, and clud s of physil vlence, sults and the stctn of is hard to know how many gay people there are Poland, or how many are leavg.

”Homosexualy has long been taboo Poland, where the Roman Catholic Church, which plays a proment role the untry’s social and polil life, has worked hand hand wh the ernment to promote a nservative way of church, which is particularly powerful ral areas, has adopted an actively hostile attu toward gay people.

Rpondg to a requt for ment, the Catholic Church poted to an official document outlg s posn, statg that homosexual “clatns” did not nstute “moral guilt, ” but homosexual acts did. It cled to ment on hate speech employed by prits, and the accatn that they were ntributg to the general terratn of the safety of gay people Jedraszewski, Poland’s archbishop, has scribed L. Neher the ernment nor the print rpond to requts for April 2019 Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of the Law and Jtice party and Poland’s facto lear, lled homosexualy a “threat to Polish inty, to our natn, to s existence, and th to the Polish state.

There have been creasg s of vlence durg pri march, and agast one cint a village southern Poland, a young gay man was harassed by neighbors hurlg homophobic abe at him, and one tried to poison his dog. It ranks 27 out of 28 European Unn stat when to equaly and non-discrimatn, acrdg to Rabow Europe, an anizatn lked to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn.

” Acrdg to the Campaign Agast Homophobia, 12 percent of people who don’t intify as heterosexual are victims of physil vlence Poland, while around nety percent of cints go unreported, acrdg to the 2016 survey.

Neverthels, “attus towards the LGBTQ muny have e a long way” says Robert Biedron, who beme Poland’s first openly gay and atheistic polician when he me out 2011. Mirosława Makuchowska, om the Campaign Agast Homophobia, says while such announcements are not legally bdg, they send a “disturbg msage” to the populatn.

” A 2017 report by the Centre for Rearch on Prejudice of the Universy of Warsaw found that sce PiS entered ernment 2015, Polish populatn’s exposure to hate speech the media, cludg agast gay people, has creased by 25%. The report stat that hate speech is “particularly dangero for youth, ” who were found to e hate speech most often and whose “sensivy to homophobic statements” creased.

One member of Budapt Pri, which aniz pri events, Viktória Radványi, tells TIME that “ spe of the growg number of people jog equaly march, homophobia the ernment and the prs has creased over the past few months.

” Durg a Budapt fom on May 15 as part of the European electns mpaign, a Fisz member and Chair of the Natnal Assembly Laszlo Kover, said there was “no moral difference” between pedophil and gay upl adoptg children. Biedron, who suffered four anti-gay physil asslts when he served as a Member of Parliament om 2011 to 2014, says “the distance between hate speech and hate crime is small. Gay Marriage⚭✖ Foreign same-sex marriag regnized onlyChangg Genr✔ Legal, surgery not requiredNon-bary genr regnn✖ Not legally regnizedDiscrimatn✖ Illegal some ntextsEmployment Discrimatn✔ Sexual orientatn and genr intyHog DiscrimatnN/AConversn Therapy✖ Not banned.

By The Numbers60% of Pol believe Poland should abolish the so-lled "LGBT-Free zon"33% of Pol believe Poland shouldn't abolish the so-lled "LGBT-Free zon"HistoryHomosexual activy Poland? Current statSce Jan 1, 1991Legal Sce the 1990s, lbian, gay and bisexual people are not banned om ary service and discrimatn agast them is officially forbidn.

However, openly gay personnel would face social difficulty, pecially for higher ranks, as for "mandg staff - officers and high-rankg NCOs - admtg to same-sex attractn would mean losg rpect - quali whout which you simply nnot be a manr" donatns by MSMs Poland? Thoands marched through central Warsaw on Saturday an “equaly para”, amid what mpaigners say has been a risg ti of homophobia Poland recent rights have bee a central part of a wir stggle the untry between liberals, who strs the need for a more tolerant and clive society, and relig nservativ, who nounce what they say is an attempt to subvert tradnal valu the predomantly Catholic a sea of rabow flags, marchers gathered outsi the towerg neo-Gothic Palace of Culture and Science central Warsaw, as a DJ played dance mic om a stage before the start of the march.