Polish LGBTI+ in the Frontline of the Fight Between Liberalism and Illiberalism – RUSI Analysis

Throughout Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, the struggle for LGBTI+ equality has created a new political faultline for Europe. For the last five years, regional conservative leaders have spread bigotry concerning the rights and equal treatment of sexual and gender minorities.

Politicians linked to Polands ruling Law & Justice party (PiS) have a track record of scapegoating minorities during election campaigns. In 2014, it was the threat of Muslim migrants disrupting Polands homogeneous Catholic society which was portrayed as a big danger. And, since no Muslims migrated to Poland, PiS had to scapegoat another minority. With the LGBTI+ movement gaining visibility across the world, including Poland, those who identify as LGBTI+ could easily be portrayed as the biggest threat to the country.

From an electoral strategic point of view, attacking the movement made sense for Polish President Adrzej Duda, who has been in power since 2015, and has just narrowly won another five-year term in office. For, after Romania, Poland is still the most religious country in Europe; it has a big and conservative countryside pool of voters who evince little empathy for the LGBTI+ community.

The fight against those who identify as LGBTI+ was again highlighted by Duda as a main theme of the recent election campaign. In early June, he launched afamily charterpleading for a stop to LGBTI ideology, a concept which many human rights defenders inPoland and beyondrightly pointed out depicted the LGBTI+ community as an abstract concept, rather than real people.

As if the family charter was not enough, Duda also boosted his ultra-conservative discourse during his campaign meetings. Before he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, for instance, he claimed that LGBT ideology was more harmful than communism.

And, as the campaign for the second round of Polands presidential elections took off, Duda broadened his scapegoating. He accused foreign news outlets of interfering in the elections, witha German journalistbeing singled out by the president. Meanwhile, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski mixed an older hatred with a newer one by claiming during aTV interviewthat a win for the opposition would open the way for Jewish restitution claims and an LGBT offensive.

A week before the final electoral round, Duda stated that he wants to constitutionally anchor that children cannot be adopted by same-sex couples. In doing so, he acknowledges the ultra-conservative andfakediscourseof Russian-backed organisations,such as Ordo Iuris, that gay couples are pedophiles.

While the anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric during the recent election campaign made headlines internationally, the campaign against sexual and gender minorities by political elites in Poland has been going on for several years now. A third of the countrys counties have declared themselves LGBTI-free zones, a move which was criticised by theEuropean Commissionand theEuropean Parliament.

The declaration of a culture war against the LGBTI+ community is not limited to Poland.There are plenty of other conservative leaders benefiting from well-fundedinternational organisationsas diverse as theAmerican evangelical churchorRussianintelligence organisations.And the fight against LGBTI+ rights has been framed by these conservative elites in the broader fight against liberal democracy and the EU.

Annually, conservative leaders come together in the World Congress of Families (WCF); an international conference where they gather to set out their objectives and strategies. Polish policymakers and NGOs close to the government haveparticipatedseveral times. The same goes for Hungarian government officials. The Hungarian state-secretary for family and international affairs and vice-president of ruling party Fidesz,Katalin Novak, has taken up a global leadership role within the anti-LGBTI+ and anti-gender movement. And Hungary followed a similar trajectory to Poland concerning social and democratic issues, such as attacks onpress freedom, judiciaryand civil society. Hungary recentlybannedlegal gender changes, which takes away any legal recognition for transgender and intersex people.

But initiatives like the WCF dont just serve a religious and ideological purpose. They also play an important geopolitical role. It is through these organisations that Russia has developed connections with many European political elites.

Russian oligarchs linked to foreign intelligence operations have directly and indirectlyparticipatedin the WCF.While there is no hard evidence of any direct involvement with the WCF,Konstantin Malofeevis a Russian billionaire who promotes Orthodox Christian narratives, and his personal assistant,Alexey Komov, is the conferences Russian representative. Furthermore, former Russian Railways CEO Vladimir Yakunin hasreportedlyfinancially contributed to the organisation, and his wife,Natalia Yakunina, is said to participate in the conference annually.

It is through Komov that the former Italian deputy prime minister,Matteo Salvini, was connected to the Kremlin. Komov also played a vital role in the connection between Russia and Frances far-right movements. Komov invited Front NationalMEP Aymeric Chaupradeto the same anti-LGBTI+ conference in Moscow that Novak attended.

It is obvious that the participation of European policymakers in these international organisations is not only a threat to the LGBTI+ community, but also to European democracy and national security. The sole reason for Russia to invest in organisations like WCF is to undermine European values. The Kremlin wages an international war against democracy, and the cultural and soft power perspective is an important frontline for them.

The Polish presidential elections also showed that the appeal of liberal democracy is not gone in the region.

In distinction from Duda, the opposition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski was portrayed as liberal and progressive. As mayor of Warsaw, Traskowskiintroducedan LGBT equality declaration. The charter was intended to ensure that all agencies, from schools to the environmental service, had to ensure equality for LGBTI+ people. As mayor, he alsoparticipatedin the equality parade in 2019 (Parada Rownosci, the Polish name for Pride).

But despite his image, Trzaskowski remained remarkably silent on LGBTI+ rights during the election campaign. It is likely that he did so to appeal to the widest possible audience. If he wanted to win in the second round, he had to address the voters of the far-right candidate, Krzysztof Bosak, as well.

Still, his personal message is not always echoed by his party, the Civic Platform (PO), which has a moderate but complex discourse concerning social issues like LGBTI+ rights. The previous governments led by PO made no progress on such rights. And in Lublin, one of Polands largest cities, the mayor is himself a member of PO and has tried toban the equalityparade.

Nonetheless, barely a few months ago nobody would have imagined that the second round of the Polish presidential elections would be so close. The candidacy of Trzaskowski reaffirms the fact that the opposition and civil society in Poland is not dead. It also shows that the opposition is getting closer to defeating the PiS.

Poland might be one of the most religious countries in Europe. Yet, it has also been one of its most pro-European and socially engaged countries. Nobody is born with bigotry. And human rights defenders in Poland wont give up until everybody is equal.

Rmy Bonny(@RemyBonny) is a Belgian political scientist who lived in Poland and Hungary, and is currently setting up the European Coalition for LGBTI Security and Equality, a Brussels-based watchdog that will structurally monitor the anti-LGBTI+ movement in the EU and its links to foreign governments.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the authors, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

BANNER IMAGE:Equality march in Poland. Courtesy of Klarqa / Wikimedia Commons.