Conservative marches around Poland oppose government’s abortion and LGBT+ policies

Marches have been held in 16 Polish cities, including the capital Warsaw, to express opposition to the government’s plans to liberalise the abortion law, introduce same-sex civil partnerships and expand hate-speech rules. Leading figures from right-wing opposition parties attended the events.

On Sunday, the annual March of Life and Family was organised for the 19th time, this year under the slogan “United for life, family and homeland”. It was held under the patronage of the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland.

The event’s coordinator, Paweł Kwaśniak of the Centre for Life and Family, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that this year’s march was in particular a response to laws proposed by the ruling coalition to expand access to abortion.

“This causes our deep opposition and concern,” he explained. “We are marching to tell those in power that we do not consent to this.”

Magdalena Majkowska, a board member of Ordo Iuris, a conservative group that was another organiser of the march, outlined their four postulates as opposition to: “abortion ‘on demand’, attacks on the identity of marriage and the family, moral corruption of children, taking away our sovereignty.”

Ulicami Warszawy przeszedł #MarszDlaŻyciaiRodziny.

Maszerowaliśmy „Zjednoczeni dla życia, rodziny, Ojczyzny”.

Nie zgadzamy się na:

❌ aborcję „na życzenie”,

❌ ataki na tożsamość małżeństwa i rodzinę,

❌ demoralizację dzieci,

❌ odbieranie nam suwerenności.#PolskaZaŻyciem pic.twitter.com/h2RCPzhu6r

— Magdalena Majkowska (@MagdaMajkowska) June 16, 2024

Speaking to participants gathered outside parliament in Warsaw, Marcin Perłowski of the Centre for Life and Family, declared their opposition to the government’s plans to introduce same-sex civil partnerships.

“This will lead to equal treatment of same-sex couples with married couples and enable them to adopt children,” he warned, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Likewise, the organisers expressed opposition to government plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the areas covered by Poland’s hate crime legislation. This would be used as a “gag for people who profess conservative, Catholic values, so that they cannot express their views in public,” said Kwaśniak.

“We oppose projects to punish the so-called hate speech,” Perłowski declared during the march. “We will always speak the truth that marriage is a relationship between one woman and one man and the truth about the harmfulness of gender ideology for young people.”

Warsaw’s mayor has banned the display of religious symbols such as crosses from city hall.

He has also ordered officials to respect the rights of same-sex couples and to use people’s preferred pronouns https://t.co/HekDYSIReu

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 16, 2024

Perłowski also criticised proposed changes to the school curriculum, such as halving the number of hours of Catholic catechism classes taught to children, and the recent decision by the mayor of Warsaw to ban crosses from the walls in city hall.

Among those to attend the march in Warsaw were Antoni Macierewicz, deputy leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that forms Poland’s main opposition. Another was Krzysztof Bosak, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party, which also sits in opposition.

Smaller marches were held in 15 other cities on Sunday, including Kraków, Gdańsk and Katowice.

A day earlier, figures from the ruling had become the first government ministers in history to attend Warsaw’s annual LGBT+ Equality Parade, at which they reiterated support for introduced same-sex partnerships.

Around 20,000 people attended Warsaw’s LGBT+ Equality Parade – including, for the first time, members of the government.

„We will deliver laws that [make] the state equal for everyone and exclude no one”, deputy prime minister @KGawkowski told the crowd https://t.co/VJ7mcRSOsv

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 17, 2024

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Main image credit: CentrumZycia/X 

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.