POLAND: Thousands Attend Fifteenth Annual Warsaw Pride Festival

Via the Associated Press:

Thousands of activists have marched in scorching weather in Warsaw's 15th yearly "Equality Parade," confirming a growing public support for gay rights.The participants chanted in support of same sex marriage and the right for same-sex couples to adopt children. Carrying a huge rainbow-colored flag, they marched from the Parliament building, through the downtown Savior Square, where a giant rainbow stands. The artwork has been repeatedly burnt by right-wing groups and is to be moved next year to another location. Small groups of gay rights opponents chanted hostile rhymes, but there was no violence.

More from Gay Star News:

The participants carried placards with political messages. They said: ‘We too are family’, ‘Marriage for everyone with the right to adoption', and ‘Yes to the right [for] gender reconciliation’. Poland has no legal rights for same-sex couples, though the issue has been debated in the Parliament of Poland; the country is predominately Catholic. Małgorzata Fuszara, the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Rights, headed the parade. She said of the march: ‘This is a march in the interest of us all, the whole of Poland, so that our society becomes one where people are open, free and show solidarity. To make it strong and diverse.’ Polish celebrities and MPs also attended the parade in support of its message for equality: including Poland’s first openly gay mayor, Robert Biedroń.

Poland enacted a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 1992. Gays are protected from employment discrimination and serve openly in the military.

RELATED: Above is the Palace Of Culture, the tallest building in Poland.

Poland Again Rejects Civil Unions

By a vote of 215-146, Polish lawmakers have rejected placing a civil unions bill on the agenda for the coming legislative session.  Nearly 100 legislators reportedly abstained or refused to vote. This is the fourth consecutive year that such an action was rejected. The 2013 attempt to pass a civil partnerships bill failed to advance by 17 votes. The head of the Campaign Against Homophobia today said, "We are lied to by politicians – mostly conservative – who say that Poland is not ready for civil partnerships, let alone same-sex marriage."

RELATED: The European Union currently has 28 members. Same-sex marriage is legal in twelve of them: Belgium, Denmark, Finland (effective 2017), France, Ireland (effective later this year) Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia (effective date pending), Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland.)  Civil unions are legal in seven EU nations: Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia (effective 2016), Germany, Hungary, and Malta. No partnership recognitions exist in nine EU nations: Bulgaria, Cyprus*, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.  (*A civil unions bill advanced in Cyprus early this month.)

Poland Rejects Civil Unions

By a vote of 235-185, Polish lawmakers have rejected placing a civil unions bill on the agenda for the coming legislative session. This is the third consecutive year that such an action was rejected. The 2013 attempt to pass a civil partnerships bill failed to advance by 17 votes.

POLAND: Pro Boxer Backs LGBT Rights

Poland's struggling LGBT rights movement got a boost this week when a "wildly popular" boxer publicly expressed his support. Via New York Times:

Dariusz Michalczewski, a world-famous pugilist who goes by the nickname Tiger, recently made headlines by announcing his support for one of the country’s most prominent gay rights groups, Shoulder to Shoulder on Equality — L.G.B.T. and Friends, by appearing in a photograph with a sign reading, “I am an ally of L.G.B.T. people, because I want to live in a country where my gay friends are not discriminated against.” Tiger, 46, is a former light heavyweight world champion who defended his title for almost 10 years. For a decade he dominated the prestigious World Boxing Organization, whose current champions include Vitali V. Klitschko and Manny Pacquiao. Now the boxer has decided to compete in the super heavyweight division — that is, the fight for minority rights in Poland. Mr. Michalczewski is both a surprising advocate for gay rights and the perfect choice for the role: He is white, heterosexual, Catholic, rich, professionally successful and widely popular, and thus more likely to persuade conservatives than a liberal intellectual or politician.

RELATED: Interestingly, homosexuality was never criminalized in Poland and its legality was codified in law way back in 1932. Gays are allowed to serve openly in the military, gay men are allowed to donate blood, and in 2003 LGBT Poles were protected from employment discrimination. However same-sex marriage is banned in the national constitution and anti-gay sentiment remains widespread. Last year former president (and Nobel Prize winner) Lech Walesa declared that gay members of the parliament should be forced to sit behind a wall.

Polish Foreign Minister: We Gave America A Blowjob And Got Nothing In Return

Eurovision 2014: Poland's Entry

"We are Slavic girls. We know how to use our charming beauty." A Eurovision blogger reviews the clip:

The opening scene of the video shows Donatan—lazy and clearly oversexed—struggling to get out of bed. His antiquated mobile phone and rural farmhouse smack of a man—indeed, a nation—behind the times. The suggestion that Warsaw is stuck in the dark ages continues with the video’s depiction of women, who churn butter while men rate their performance. Milk running down their cheeks and over their thrusting cleavage isn’t just there to titilate. It plays on the supposed role of women in traditional society: to be angels in the kitchen and wantons in the bedroom.

Much boobage is ahead.

POLAND: Archbishop Blames Divorced Parents For Pedophile Priests

"Many of these cases of (sexual) molestation could be avoided given a healthy relationship between parents. We often hear that this inappropriate attitude (pedophilia), or abuse, manifests itself when a child is looking for love. It (the child) clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this. How many wounds are their in children's hearts, in children's lives, when their parents go their separate ways?" - Archbishop Jozef Michalik, speaking to the press about the snowballing Polish scandal involving pedophile priests. (Tipped by JMG reader Tofu)

RELATED: Last month the Vatican recalled Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, its official envoy to the Dominican Republic, over accusations that he and another Polish priest had sexually abused boys.

Take THAT, Lech Walesa

This week former Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa declared that gay rights are ridiculous and that LGBT lawmakers should be forced to sit in the back of Parliament.  Here's a great result of Walesa's assholery.

Poland's first gay and transgender lawmakers will sit on the front bench in Parliament this week in reaction to hostile remarks by former president Lech Walesa. Janusz Palikot, the leader of progressive party Palikot's Movement, reacted by promoting the party's gay lawmaker, Robert Biedron, and transgender lawmaker, Anna Grodzka, to the front row for a three-day session starting Wednesday. In Poland's Parliament, the front row, which is closest to the Speaker and gets the most TV attention, is generally for party leaders and senior lawmakers. The Cabinet sits in a separate section.

Walesa's own son, who sits in the European Parliament, has denounced his father's words. The elder Walesa has refused to apologize.

Lech Walesa On Gay Rights

"They have to know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things. And not rise to the greatest heights, the greatest hours, the greatest provocations, spoiling things for the others and taking (what they want) from the majority. I don't agree to this and I will never agree to it. A minority should not impose itself on the majority." - Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa, adding that gays have no right to sit in Poland's Parliament.  And if they are elected, they should be seated "behind a wall."  (Tipped by JMG reader Trude)

Poland Rejects Civil Unions

The Polish parliament today narrowly rejected legislation that would grant some relationship rights to same-sex couples.

The lower house of parliament rejected three bills that would have legalized civil unions, including narrowly defeating one proposed by a member of the ruling Civic Platform that would have given limited rights to unmarried partners, including ability to inherit property. The motion to prevent the Civic Platform bill from going to committees for further work was backed by 228 deputies, with 211 against. Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke out in favor of the reform, but 46 members of his own party, including Justice Minister Jaroslaw Gowin, sided with the conservative opposition and voted against all three bills on their first reading. "You can't question the existence of such people (living in homosexual partnerships) and you can't argue against the people who decide to live in such way," Tusk told the parliament before the votes.

Opponents to the legislation told Reuters that granting recognition to gay relationships "would do nothing" to stem Poland's dwindling population.

Headline Of The Day

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Vivian)

POLAND: Catholic Church Launches Magazine About Exorcisms

The Polish Catholic Church has launched the world's first magazine exclusively devoted to exorcisms. By popular demand. Seriously.

"The rise in the number or exorcists from four to more than 120 over the course of 15 years in Poland is telling," Father Aleksander Posacki, a professor of philosophy, theology and leading demonologist and exorcist told reporters in Warsaw at the Monday launch of the Egzorcysta monthly. Ironically, he attributed the rise in demonic possessions in what remains one of Europe's most devoutly Catholic nations partly to the switch from atheist communism to free market capitalism in 1989. "It's indirectly due to changes in the system: capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of occultism. Fortune telling has even been categorised as employment for taxation," Posacki told AFP. "If people can make money out of it, naturally it grows and its spiritual harm grows too," he said, hastening to add authentic exorcism is absolutely free of charge.

Priests involved in the magazine say that the depictions of exorcisms in popular movies have been "largely accurate."

Poland Considers Civil Partnerships

Poland's ruling party has announced its plan to introduce a civil partnerships bill.

After several months of discussion, the PO [Platforma Obywatelska] decided last week to put to the vote a draft bill in both chambers of the Polish parliament, the Sejm and Senate. The proposed draft bill of registered civil partnership is similar the current French Pacte civil de solidarité (PACS). The bill includes a range of benefits which currently are only granted to married heterosexual couples, including protections and responsibilities, inheritance, pension funds, notary, and medical rights. Joint tax benefits and adoption rights are not included in the bill. The PO is the country's largest party and its intention to put the draft bill to the vote surprised many political commentators as the party opposed last year in a parliamentary vote a similar draft bill introduced by left wing parties.

The bill faces fierce opposition from the usual groups, but the PO may have the necessary votes to push it through by themselves. Poland currently offers no recognition to LGBT couples.

Romney Aide In Poland: "Kiss My Ass! This Is Supposed To Be A Holy Site!"

And the Romney World Gaffe Tour rolls on!

Photo Of The Day - Polish Paulites

Ron Paul's followers are everywhere, including at Mitt Romney's stop in Gdansk, Poland. Tomorrow they will protest his appearance in Warsaw. Source.

Poland Rejects Civil Partnerships

Via press release from a local LGBT rights group:

43 years after the Stonewall riot, Polish deputies decided that same sex couples are citizens of a second class. Yesterday, on 28 June, in the Polish Sejm - the Lower House of the Parliament - deputies rejected the Civil Partnership Bill for same and different sex couples. The Commission of Legislation, which was asked to evaluate bills, outvoted it 15-3. It means that the Polish Parliament is not going to work on the Bill. Now everything is up to one person – speaker of the Sejm, Ewa Kopacz, who said in 2002 that openly gay person should not hold public office and should not be able to stand for the elections.

Visit their Facebook page.

POLAND: Neo-Nazis Register Anti-Gay Symbol As Official Party Logo

AFP reports:

In a little-noticed decision at the end of October, a court allowed the small National Rebirth of Poland (NOP) party to register two symbols. One was the Celtic cross, used by far-right movements internationally, while the other was a stylized illustration of gay sex with a bar through it. The NOP trumpeted the court ruling on its website earlier this week, saying it capped a two-year legal battle. Grzegorz Schetyna, a senior player in Poland's ruling centrist Civic Platform, accused the judge who made the ruling of failing in his duties. "Such symbols are unacceptable," he told the station Radio Zet. The NOP turns out regularly to oppose gay rights rallies in Poland.

RELATED: Last summer friends of mine were attacked by neo-Nazi and Catholic extremists while attending EuroPride in Warsaw. Over 2000 Polish riot police were deployed to protect those attending the parade.

Death Metal Politician

Via Political Wire: "Polish parliamentary hopeful Jedrzej Wijas of the Democratic Left Alliance enlisted the help of a local death metal band to make a very unique political ad."

Polish College Cancels "Ex-Gay" Confab

After criticism from a local newspaper, a Polish university has canceled this weekend's "ex-gay" conference in which the keynote speaker was to have been famed NARTH whackadoodle Joseph Nicolesi (left).

The Foundation for Health and Psychotherapeutic Education head, psychologist Bogna Bialecka, said that her Poznan-based organization has been planning the conference for several months so that Nicolosi could share his professional experience helping men deal with their unwanted same-sex attraction. “The decision of the Medical University’s governing body is a sad example of censoring the freedom of speech,” she said. According to Bialecka, homosexual activists sent hundreds of e-mail to the medical school demanding the conference be banned from its facilities. “The conference will take place nearby, but out of concern for the lecturer and the participants, we do not plan to publish the location of the new site,” she said.

(Via - ExGay Watch)

World's Thinnest House

Supposedly liveable at a yard-wide at its narrowest point. (Source)