Petrelis Files

Polish Ex-Prez Questioned on Gays at SF Talk

The president of Poland from 1995 to 2005, Aleksander Kwasniewski, on May 17 came to San Francisco's Jewish Community Center to participate in a lecture and forum on reconciliation between Poles and Jews.

Three gay men, John Silverman, Ken Hodnett, and myself, attended the event, hoping Kwasniewski would address homophobia in Poland and the myriad hostilities faced by Polish gays today.

Kwasniewski's lecture was very honest in recognizing the historical conflicts between not only Poles and Jews, but also the centuries of warfare between his country and the Russians, the Germans and other Europeans. He didn't play the "victim card" and went out of his way to acknowledge Poland's attacks on the Ukraine.

During the formal Q&A part of the evening, the moderators did not ask him about his views on recent violence perpetrated against Polish gays, even though I had written and submitted two gay-specific questions to the moderators.

After Kwasniewski's talk, he milled about the auditorium and accepted best wishes from many in the audience.

I nudged myself close to him and presented him with two articles with large color photos, written by veteran progressive writer and gay advocate Doug Ireland for New York's Gay City News. Ireland's articles detailed the brutal treatment of Polish gays in the past few months, and you can read them here and here. Kwasniewski glanced at the stories and photos, then quickly handed them to an aide.

With my tape recorder inches from his mouth, we had the following exchange:

Q: What about gay people? Gay people are being bashed in Poland.

KWASNIEWSKI: Not during my presidency. This is a problem of my successor.

Q: But will support equal rights for gays? Polish gays just want equal rights.

KWASNIEWSKI: I know the gays. And, and the problems of your problems. It's not my problem.

Q: Polish gays just don't want to be beaten up on the streets.

KWASNIEWSKI: On the gays, the gays, the gays. This we have in the constitution, the sentence which I accepted because before my presidency I was chairman of constitutional committee. Commission said to me, no discriminations. Nothing. And I, I hope and I'm sure the Polish authorities will respect this article of the constitution.

Q: Thank you.

KWASNIEWSKI: No discriminations. Never.

Q: They just don't want to be beat up.

If he hadn't moved away from me, I would have informed Kwasniewski that gays did face repression when he was president and despite his belief that there have never been "discriminations" against gays, as he put it, Polish gays have certainly endured discrimination and suffered too many bashings.

The former president, of course, is right about the general anti-discrimination article being in the Polish constitution, but was rather slick and avoided acknowledging and addressing the blatant intolerance and hatred directed at Polish gays and lesbians, as they try to peaceably assemble and organize for full equality.

This what the International Gay and Lesbian Association web site reports on the constitution and gays:

In April 1995 the Constitutional Committee of the Polish Parliament proposed that the anti-discrimination clause of the constitution include protection from discrimination on the grounds sexual orientation. However this proposal met strong opposition, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church. The constitution as finally approved by Parliament in March 1997 dropped the list of protected categories of people, the revised anti-discrimination article reading as follows: "Nobody can be discriminated based on any ground in political, social or economical life".(art. 32 part 2). The constitution also included an Article restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. (Slawek Starosta, ILGA Euro-Letter No. 52 - August 1997)

I contacted Tomek Szypula, a Polish gay activist and leader with the advocacy group Kampania Przeciw Homofobii, to get his opinion about Kwasniewski and his relations with gays. Here is Tomek Szypula's response:

Hi Michael

Mr. Kwasniewski has good intentions but he didn't do anything to support gays and lesbians during his 10-years presidency.

Last year in June when the Mayor of Warsaw Lech Kaczynski (now the new President) banned the Pride, President Kwasniewski and the Prime minister from SLD (Left Democratic Alliance) didn't do ANYTHING.

We sent some appeals and letters asking for interventions but there was no answer at all.

Kwasniewski is an opportunist. He wants to be popular and he knows that 90 per cent of Poles are Catholic. Officially he is liberal but he tries to avoid any
controversial actions.

I don't know any of his official statements during his presidency which were in favour gay and lesbian rights. Kwasniewski was the President until Dec 2005. Our problems started in Spring 2004 (for the first time the pride was banned).

I hope I answered to your questions.

Yes, Tomek, you did answer my questions, and on behalf of the three of us San Francisco gay men who attended Kwasniewski's lecture and challenged him on gay matters, we're proud to have helped Polish gays and lesbians in some small way. We stand with the Polish gay community as they organize for acceptance and equality. And when Kwasnieski speaks again in San Francisco, we promise to be there and ask him once more to question him on gay issues.