Polish Leader Casts Gays as Enemy in Bid to Revive Campaign

  • President woos ultra-Catholic voters with anti-gay rhetoric
  • LGBT group sees trend of rising aggression during pandemic
Andrzej DudaPhotographer: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Poland’s president stepped up a political attack against the LGBT community, portraying gay people as enemies in a bid to jump-start his stalled campaign for a second term in this month’s election.

Returning to a tactic that the nationalist ruling Law & Justice Party has used to woo voters in the staunchly Catholic European Union nation, President Andrzej Duda signed a family-values declaration on Wednesday. He vowed to “protect children from LGBT ideology” and prohibit the propagation of such ideas by public institutions.