Poland’s government has just become even more anti-LGBT+

Poland’s government has deepened its anti-LGBT+ stance with the appointment of a new cabinet including an ultra-conservative education chief.

The Law and Justice (PiS) coalition has heightened its attacks on LGBT+ people in recent years. However the European Union is now making some steps to intervene.

As a result, insiders say there’s been a battle between Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki who wants to avoid further confrontation with the EU and the ultra-conservative Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro. Both are bying to succeed PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski who is now 71.

Now, in disastrous news for LGBT+ children and educators, Przemyslaw Czarnek will lead the country’s education ministry.

The 43-year-old is a lecturer at a Catholic university and determined to instill conservative values in Polish children.

He has said gay people are ‘not equal to normal people’. And just this Tuesday (29 October) he said schools should protect children from a moral and sexual revolution driven by ‘LGBT ideology’.

‘New culture war’

Indeed, Czarnek told public broadcaster TVP:

‘We will not allow for children to be exposed to an ideology … that’s contrary to values that have been the foundation of the Polish society for centuries.’

Moreover he said parents have a constitutional right to use corporal punishment against children under certain circumstances.

And he says women should not put having a career before having children as he argues ‘God has called’ them to start a family.

Opposition lawmaker Barbara Nowacka said Czarnek’s appointment is a ‘new culture war’.

She told Reuters: ‘We expect changes in the core curriculum, changes in the autonomy of universities. He is a man who would really like that the Catholic region is dominant.’

Meanwhile another change is also significant. Until now PiS chief Kaczynski has been a kind of puppet master behind the scenes of government. But now he has joined the administration formally as deputy premier.

EU fight

The EU is particularly alarmed by the rise of ‘LGBT Free Zones’ across Poland. Moreover, they noted the hate-filled re-election campaign of PiS candidate Andrej Duda who won his second term as Poland’s president in July.

Since then, Poland has seen a summer of protests and public anger by both LGBT+ people and haters.

The European Union has already rejected funding for six towns in Poland that have declared themselves ‘LGBT Free Zones’.

But now the EU looks like it may intervene more aggressively. On 16 September, European Commission President Von der Leyen told the European Parliament:

‘LGBTQI-free zones are humanity free zones. And they have no place in our (European) Union.

‘Breaches of the rule of law cannot be tolerated.’