Poland cracks down on loophole that let LGBT+ people adopt children in yet another hateful attack
Andrzej Duda, president of Poland, lambasted “LGBT ideology” during his 2020 election campaign. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty)
Poland’s ruling political party is set to close a legal loophole that allowed same-sex couples to adopt children in a further blow to LGBT+ rights.
Same-sex couples are currently not allowed to adopt under Polish law – however, some couples were able to get around the discriminatory policy by getting one partner to adopt as a single person.
The Law and Justice party, which has made its opposition to LGBT+ rights a cornerstone of its governance, has announced that it will amend the law to ensure that no same-sex couples can adopt children.
“We are preparing a change where (…) people living in cohabitation with a person of the same sex could not adopt a child, so a homosexual couple will not be able to adopt a child,” deputy justice minister Michal Wojcik said, according to Reuters.
Under the new law, adoption agencies will be forced to pay “special attention” to single applicants to ensure they are not securely in a same-sex relationship.
Wojcik defended the legal change, claiming that it is being introduced to protect children.
“It’s about a child’s safety, about its wellbeing,” he said.
LGBT+ rights are being rolled back in Poland
The news is just the latest in a string of attacks on the LGBT+ community in Poland. By February 2020, a third of the country had declared itself an “LGBT free zone”.
In July, Andrzej Duda was re-elected as president of Poland after a tumultuous campaign in which he repeatedly targeted the LGBT+ community.
Throughout his campaign, he attacked same-sex marriage, adoption and “gay ideology”. In a family charter published ahead of his election, he promised to “prohibit the propagation of this ideology” in public institutions and said he would “defend the institution of marriage” as a “relationship between a man and a woman” as president.
The European Union declared itself an “LGBTIQ freedom zone” on Thursday (11 March) in response to Poland’s attacks on the queer community.
The symbolic resolution was adopted by the European Parliament by 492 votes to 141, while 46 MEPs abstained.
The resolution says that LGBT+ people in the EU “should enjoy the freedom to live and publicly show their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of intolerance, discrimination or persecution”.
