You Forgot Poland!

Shorter Wingnut:

“Poland’s homophobic purges and suppression of free speech resistance to the gay agenda inspires me.”

I’ve long since stopped being amazed when conservatives — who ordinarily toe the line of American exceptionalism — venture abroad to discover illiberal alternatives to whatever it is they abhor about American culture. Ordinarily, these folks can’t be bothered to care what anyone else in the world thinks about climate change, capital punishment, land mines, nuclear weapons, or any other issue on which there’s a broad international consensus. When it comes to issues of sexuality or family planning, though, many conservatives are perfectly comfortable aligning themselves with the world’s cultural retrogrades and reactionary theocrats (some of whom they also insist we’re opposing in an existential war for the survival of Christendom). Eric Langborgh prefers to view Poland as the closest European cultural peer of the US, but he’s just transparently picking cherries to support his bogus thesis that Poland’s challenge to “the rest of secularized Europe” is somehow commendable.

Here’s some context to what’s going on in Poland:

President Lech Kaczynski . . . has made it clear that he sees homosexuality as a threat. On February 20, during a visit to Ireland, he stated, “If that kind of approach to sexual life were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear.”

The proposed homophobic legislation follows a series of recent threats and abuses against lesbian and gay Poles by state officials. In June, the State Prosecutor’s office issued a letter to prosecutors in the municipalities of Legnica, Wroclaw, Walbryzch, Opole and Jelenia Gora ordering in sweeping terms investigations into the conduct of “homosexuals” on unspecified allegations of “pedophilia.”

Polish officials have also repeatedly tried to restrict the rights of LGBT people to free speech and assembly. In 2004 and 2005, when he was mayor of Warsaw, President Kaczynski intended to ban Gay Pride marches, though the parades were allowed to proceed after administrative courts held the ban unconstitutional. Authorities also tried to ban the LGBT Equality Parade in Warsaw scheduled to take place on June 10, 2006. Wojciech Wierzejski, a member of parliament from the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, or LPR) said last May, “If deviants start to demonstrate, they should be bashed with a baton.”

This most recent attack on lesbian and gay rights comes at a time when homophobic policies and anti-Semitic rhetoric by Polish officials have come under increasing international scrutiny. On March 15, the president of the European Parliament reprimanded a Polish member, Maciej Giertych, for publishing an anti-Semitic pamphlet, marking the first time a member of the European Parliament was sanctioned for violations of the EU body’s principles of mutual respect.

Basing policy on false assumptions? Suppressing rights to public assembly? Endorsements of state-sponsored wilding? Sounds like a model to me.