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Mums protest Polish president's anti-gay rhetoric
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A group of mothers of Polish gay people protested on Monday against the use of anti-gay rhetoric by President Andrzej Duda and other conservative politicians. (Shutterstock/Elizabeth Winterbourne)
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group of mothers of Polish gay people protested on Monday against the use of anti-gay rhetoric by President Andrzej Duda and other conservative politicians.
Ahead of a presidential election on June 28, Duda is ramping up a campaign against "LGBT ideology" which he likened to communism in a speech on Saturday.
"What you are saying about our children is painful and enormously harmful," said Helena Biedron, the mother of left-wing presidential candidate Robert Biedron and one of the women at the demonstration in Warsaw.
"Mister President, we are scared for our children," said Biedron, standing outside the presidential residence.
"We do not want to lose them just because someone who thinks they are not human attacks them, kills them or pushes them to suicide," she said, adding that anti-gay language was "depriving them of humanity".
Duda, who is from the governing nationalist Law and Justice Party, is hoping his campaign will win the support of Poland's powerful Catholic Church and a traditionally-minded section of Polish society.
"During the entire communist era, communist ideology was imposed on children. That was Bolshevism. Now people are trying to brainwash them with a new ideology. It's a sort of neo-Bolshevism," Duda said on Saturday.
"They are trying to make us believe that this is about people but it is an ideology," he said.
Several other politicians have espoused similar positions in recent weeks and gay rights were also a key issue ahead of parliamentary elections in October.
According to the latest opinion polls, Duda has around 40 percent support but his main rival, Warsaw's centrist mayor, Rafal Trzaskowki, is catching up quickly.
