European Union – Poland in particular, but also Hungary and Slovenia, were at the center of criticism on Wednesday and Thursday in the European Parliament. The three conservative-governed Central European countries were the subject of a debate on media freedom. The first two, and especially Poland with its ‘LGBT-ideology free’ local governments, were furthermore directly targeted by the ‘European Parliament resolution of 11 March 2021 on the declaration of the EU as an LGBTIQ Freedom Zone’, where the word ‘Poland’ appears 14 times and the word ‘Hungary’ three times. Each time, it is in the context of accusations against these two countries. It must therefore be noted that this proclamation by the European Parliament, whose value is purely symbolic, is above all yet another resolution against Poland and Hungary.
In the March 4 briefing announcing the vote on the 11, it was already stated that: “In a debate on Wednesday and a vote on Thursday, MEPs are expected to call for the EU to be an ‘LGBTIQ Freedom Zone’, in response to ‘LGBTIQ-free zones’ in Poland.” Hence, after a long litany of ‘whereas’ clauses explaining how bad things are especially in Poland and also to a lesser extent in Hungary, and how LGBT people are discriminated against there, the European Parliament “declares the European Union an ‘LGBTIQ Freedom Zone’.”
It can thus be seen that the European Parliament continues to propagate, even in its plenary debates and resolutions, the media story of Polish territories where LGBT people are allegedly banned or at least severely discriminated against. The term “LGBT-free zones” or “LGBTI-free zones” is used six times in the resolution passed on Thursday by the European Parliament. The reports of such “LGBT-free zones” are a notorious case of fake news that has already been exposed many times, even in Polish courts, which, despite their lack of sympathy for the PiS government (which is incidentally not the originator of the declarations against LGBT ideology and those in favor of family rights passed by about 100 local authorities), have in the majority of cases rejected the complaints of the Polish ombudsman Adam Bodnar against these declarations, noting that they did not call for discrimination against any minority.
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For more information on the origin and nature of the declarations passed by Polish local authorities,
see: “Self-proclaimed ‘LGBT ideology-free’ local communities in Poland.”
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One might also wonder, given the numerous attacks on Polish Catholics by LGBT and pro-abortion activists in recent years, why the European Parliament should not also proclaim the EU a “Catholic-freedom zone”?
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See on this subject:
– The international LGBT offensive in Catholic Poland
– The Radical Left Demonstrates after the Polish CC Ruling on Eugenic Abortion
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Of course, in order to avoid discrimination, we should also think about all the other possible minorities living in the EU, so that the EU can be declared a freedom zone for those people too. But this will not happen, as a majority of MEPs have already rejected the amendment proposed by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, where the Polish PiS MEPs sit, to replace the notion of a freedom zone for LGBTIQ people only with a “‘Freedom Zone’ for everyone, regardless of race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, sexual orientation, property, birth, disability, age or sex, [being] an area in which families are under special protection and where respect for human dignity, democratic choices, equality before the law and human rights are ensured.”
In the end, the LGBTIQ-only resolution, accusing Poland and, to a lesser extent, Hungary of a catalog of wrongs, was adopted by 492 votes in favor, 141 against, with 46 abstentions. As expected, and as is usually the case in the European Parliament on this type of issues, the EPP, Renew and S&D groups voted overwhelmingly in favor alongside the far left, while the ECR and I&D groups voted overwhelmingly against (detailed voting results on the resolution, with the names of MEPs, on pages 243 and 244 of this document – the symbol ‘+’ is for votes in favor, ‘-’ for votes against and ‘0’ for abstentions).
With regard to the speeches that preceded the vote, there is one in particular that deserves to be mentioned, because it reflects the extent to which today’s European Parliament seems to be at the mercy of all kinds of media manipulation. This was the speech by Spanish Socialist MEP Iratxe García Perez, for the S&D Group, who said: “Mr. Kaczyński, Mr. Orbán, there is no ideology that justifies putting up signs with messages in different languages that promote discrimination of sexual identities.”
Perhaps some kind soul in the European Parliament should go and explain once again to this poor MEP from the other side of Europe (as seen from Poland) that those signs with the inscription ‘LGBT free zone’ in several languages mounted at the entrance to some Polish municipalities were put up by an LGBT activist, Bart Staszewski, so that he could take the photos that created the fake news of “LGBT-free zones” in Poland. Staszewski publicly described his action more than a year ago as a way to protest the declarations passed by such municipalities, but the information obviously has not yet reached Ms. García Perez, unless she was deliberately lying.
Patryk Jaki of the ECR Group responded to the accusations in a way that shows how much, by seeking to impose a certain ideology on the whole of the EU, the progressive/liberal majority that controls the European Parliament is deepening rifts within the Union: “Of course, there are no LGBT-free zones in Poland, but in order to check your true intentions, I have tabled an amendment stating that the European Union is not just a free zone for LGBT people, but for everyone, regardless of religion, creed or skin color. You reject it. That is because you are not interested in tolerance. This is an attack by left-wing activists on traditional values. Once again, we can see in this assembly the colonial thinking that your culture is better than the Polish culture. Yet look at your statistics: it turns out that there are fewer attacks on LGBT people in Poland than in your progressive Netherlands, Belgium or Germany. Homosexuality has never been punished as a crime in Poland, whereas it has been in your countries. And finally, there are more women in management positions in Poland than in your countries. So maybe this traditional culture is no worse than your new social engineering. ”
His fellow countryman Ryszard Legutko (also from the ECR group), a professor of philosophy and author of works including the book The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, concluded: “The text drawn up by the Parliament is absurd and shows that this House has become a huge ideological machine that wants to create a new man in the EU at all costs, even by violating the law (…). As for the facts, check the OSCE data on hate crimes, especially attacks on gays. In which countries is this figure highest? Data for 2019: in the Netherlands, 574 cases, in Germany, 248 cases, in Belgium, 163. In which countries is this figure lowest? In Lithuania, 2 cases, in Poland, 16. So perhaps you should be talking about Germany and Belgium here, not Poland and other Eastern European countries. The countries of Western Europe are surpassing themselves in ideological actions. From the nursery onwards, they feed their infants with gender and the fluidity of the sexes. Ideological officers are constantly present in schools, the media and businesses. (…) Let people live their lives, do not make a revolution, make the EU a free zone for common sense. ”
