Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa has taken a stand against sexual minorities. Same-sex marriage is being debated in Poland, and on a television program last Friday evening Walesa let it be known, among other things, that he is bothered by members of sexual minorities being represented among Polish MPs.
Walesa was responding to a question posed by a journalist with the privately-owned television station TVN who asked him whether such MPs shouldn’t be made to sit on the back benches against the wall in the Sejm (Poland’s legislature) since they allegedly only represent a minority. Walesa, who is famous for being a devout Catholic, answered: "Yes, up against the wall, and even behind the wall." Currently one gay man who publicly espouses his orientation and one transsexual are MPs.
Agence France-Presse reports that the former president claims to respect democracy and the majority. "It’s the majority who create democracy… What we have here, however, is a minority moving forward ahead of the majority," he noted.
Walesa said he "tolerates and understands homosexuals" but does not want them demonstrating in city centers. He said they should hold their events on the outskirts:
"I don’t want this minority, with whom I disagree, to take to the streets and confuse my children and grandchildren."
"I’m from the old school," Walesa insisted. "I understand these people are different, of a different orientation, and that they have a right to their identity, but they can’t change the order of things that has been introduced over the course of centuries. I don’t even want to hear them speak. They can do that among themselves and they should leave us, me and my grandchildren, alone."
Public opinion polls report that more than two-thirds of Poles are against same-sex marriage. According to a recent report by Homo Homini, a sociological research institute, 69 % of respondents are against same-sex marriage, 27 % support it and 4 % have no opinion about it.
The Sejm recently rejected three versions of bills on registered partnership. According to the conservative right, such bills are meant to "legalize moral decay in society and confirm the crisis of the traditional family model."
