4,000 turned up for what is becoming an event in the calendar in Warsaw.
Maybe only 100 turned up for the counter demonstration by the new youth wing of the League of Polish Families (LPR) – an organization hastily cobbled together after All-Polish Youth got kicked out of the party after one too many embarrassing neo-Nazi type antics.
LPR had tried to get the Equality Parade banned, of course – this time on the feeble excuse that homosexuality was against Christianity, and the Polish Constitution [?] which apparently privileges relationships between men and women.
Unfortunately for LPR the Polish Constitution also guarantees the right to free speech and assembly, a concept that they and many in the present government are still struggling with. And as Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, the Mayor of Warsaw pointed out, to ban the march would be to go against a recent ruling in the Court of Human Rights.
I was sitting in the Jazz Bistro in the centre of town watching the parade pass. It looked fun. One old lady sitting at a table next ours said to her elderly companion: “Such a lot of young people….it’s that Roman Giertych I blame….”
Photo by Joseph Vogt
p.s. - Some moron has been impersonating the beatroot on the All-Polish Youth web site. The second comment is me, the first is not. How sad.
pps – There was a March for Family and Life in Warsaw today, organized by ultra-conservatives. It’s hard to know how many turned up. It says here between ‘600 and 3,5000’, which is rather vague. Was that the gap between what the organizers said and what the police think? .
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Warsaw Equality Parade passes off without much opposition
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38 comments:
We know you wouldn't write such crap as this
Don't worry - people who know you - know that this pure garbage
Sleep well:-)
issie
So, the gays were marching and having fun (NSFW), Młodzież Wszechpolska was protesting, and Ryszard Kalisz (and top brass of SLD) was riding along and giving interviews slamming PiS.
Does anyone still believe this to be anything else than a cynical ride to power on an overblown issue?
Issie
What are you talking about?
Opamp
Are you saying that the people are being manipulated by evil political parties riding along trying to get votes?
Well yes, and no.
Yes, because LPR, and Left and Democracy or whatever they are calling the latest ex-communist opposition, are using this to try and give themselves a reason to be, at a time when both sides are beginning to feel marginalized (good!).
But both sides do represent constituencies in Poland. With the gay side, they are starting to get the confidence that you need to assert yourself, instead of hiding who you are. As you have said before, there are no formal barriers to being a homosexual in Poland – but there are lots of social constraints and bigotry. Those thing need to be tackled, not swept under the carpet.
Through their plodding insistence on addressing only _collective_ interests (families, unions, interest groups of various kinds, Poles vs non-Poles), the right in Poland has left a rather large section of individual-based issues for the ex-communists to grab to use to build a niche as champions of human rights.
Irony, they name is Polish politics.
"Does anyone still believe this to be anything else than a cynical ride to power on an overblown issue?"
Well, I don't believe R Giertych honestly believes half the crap he says. I think he's purposely making a play for the 'ciemny naród' vote so far securely held by PiS and he thinks this (nasty gays teaching your children!) is an issue he can ride to stay in parliament.
Yeah, big parade, too bad most of the people for gay rights were out of the country (Hi, Holland!). This was nothing short of a circus.
I'm from Holland (Hallo, allemaal!) but I feel really ashamed. This is a new form of colonialism. The dutch coming to Poland to speak out that Polish people are inferior, dutch are superior and you should be like the dutch: gay, feminist and pro-abortion.
Poland is a independant state and not a province of the Netherlands. Now people like me, the dutch, are being hatred in Poland, because of our support of gay-pride and the abortion-boat, which is a disgrace as well. The dutch are very rascist, look at the way the dutch talk about Polish emigrants it is a shame. No, I'm not happy with the behaviour of some of my fellow-citizens, I only can feel a lot of shame.
Hey opamp, before you come over to this thread and give us the benefit of your bigotry how about you go and answer the points about gay marriage and explain to Beatroot why he should not be permitted to marry his beloved?
@harry:
Your wish is my command.
In communist times, the good ol' commie days, gay-marriage or any homosexual was illegal as well, wasn't it? So, anti-gay is not exclusive fascism, but also socialism. Maybe because it's just unnatural behaviour? I'm against violence, so I do not accept the behaviour of some fascists in the anti-gay-demonstrations. However I still see gaysex as unnatural. Sorry.
^ You are perfectly welcome to consider gaysex as being un-natural. You can think whatever you like and carry on thinking it. You can do whatever you like provided it doesn't hurt any other human being and you can carry on doing it. But perhaps you could extend that same ability to other people?
One small point: it is not natural to use computers or the internet, both are entirely un-natural. I suggest you think long and hard before using such un-natural things.
Dobre den tawarietsj Harry!
Thanks for your reply. Although I see gay-sex as unnatural, it's more like a mental disease I think (but I'm no doctor, so I only guess), I also think that every citizen, including gay, pedophiles and lesbians (or whatever -philes), have the right of protection against violence. You can make certain acts of sex illegal, but NEVER people should be discriminate about what they feel or if they sick or some other thing which is not their faulth. There is no medicin against homophilia, nor against pedophilia etc. So, everyone who is sick, should not be molested by nazi's or so. I do not agree and strongly disagree with the tactics used by this neo-nazi's. Violence, verbal agressivity, theatening, al those things I'm very against. Polish gay deserve to get normal jobs like everyone, equal salary and live without fear. However, that's different to pretending gay-sex is normal. I hope one can make a difference.
Thing is in this kind of discussion, nuance discussion is difficult. People think you are either anti or pro. I'm against gay-sex, but also against the tactics used by the nazi's and if I was president of Poland no gay would be molested anylonger in my country and people who molest, attack gays or threaten them, would be in jail. However, there would never ever be a gay-parade, gay-pride, abortion-boat (I'ld let the dutch boat sink!), gay-marriage and gay-sex would be illegal. Like in the soviet-days!
If gays had equal rights then there wouldn't be any need to protest in support of gays being given equal rights.
By the way: Poland de-criminalised homosexuality in 1932. At no time in the 45 years that Poland was soviet-controlled was homosexuality illegal. But don't let facts get in the way of bigotry!
At no time in the 45 years that Poland was soviet-controlled was homosexuality illegal.
Yea, look at how great things were for gays in the Soviet Union and Russia today. And everyone knows that Polish gays were better off under Soviet control.
Equality is a fact, so there is no need to 'fight' for it. Any man can marry any woman, and vice versa. Besides, 'a gay marriage' is an oxymoron. Homosexuals should not try to hijack and distort a meaning of the well-established term but, instead, invent a new one that could more accurately describe their partnership. 'A rainbow union' sounds fun (almost techno), cool, and progressive. We can call a cow a horse, but it is not going to go down well with real horses. Can cows gallop? If not, they are only ALMOST like real mares and stallions. Only horses can have stable relationships, right?
Equality is a fact, so there is no need to 'fight' for it.
Actually, about two days ago someone posted an interesting comment on Gazeta Wyborcza website. The poster claimed to be a lesbian woman and listed the following areas where she faces discrimination. These were:
1. If she outed in her workplace, she would be fired.
Tough, but a competent lawyer should have no problem suing the employer's pants off.
2. She cannot do her taxes together with her partner.
Any particular reason why she should be able to?
3. She cannot inquire about the health of her partner in hospital.
Actually she could, if they did the paperwork.
4. She cannot pick the registered mail at the post office for her partner.
Horror! Down with the post office -- the essence of Catholic bigotry and backwardness! [Shamelessly stolen from the original thread].
As you can see, the dicrimination of gays in Poland really takes on very serious and dangerous forms!
Seriously though, the last three points could be solved by doing minor changes to the law and simply legislating that people who live together can inquire about each other's health, do taxes together or pick up mail. Still not a good reason to introduce a problematic institution of homosexual marriage.
Op
It is true that gays face little legal discrimination in Poland. And that is important. Where I work when the new regime took over many gay people there were afraid. Would they be sacked?
In truth, nobody has been sacked for that reason. Many other strange reasons, but not that one.
Two that I know have left of their own accord though.
But legal discrimination is not the point. I was just sitting in the sunshine having a beer after work, on my own, reading something interesting in the warm evening sunshine. I don’t ask for much more from life…
And then an obviously gay waiter served three men. He took their orders and went back to the bar. As he went there was sniggering, and words said and clearly a mocking of the gay waiter.
Now that kind of thing happens all the time. Low level, harassment. I think it is not too much to ask for this kind of ignorance and bad manners to stop.
I also know a heterosexual guy, who is admittedly a bit camp, being beaten up not once, but twoie because some trog thought he was gay.
People should be treated with respect.
But they should not ask to be treated - as multiculturalism preaches to us - as special. They should feel as special as I do. Meaning – not very. Equal, not special. But with respect. Not much to ask…
Polish anti-gay feelings are funny not in the least in that there are traditions in Poland that mean a fair amount of straight guys are perceived as gay (by Americans).
BR, then you should similarly respect baseball fans instead of sniggering at and mocking them.
And make baseball-phobic remarks a criminal offense.
opamp said...
Actually, about two days ago someone posted an interesting comment on Gazeta Wyborcza website. The poster claimed to be a lesbian woman and listed the following areas where she faces discrimination. These were:
1. If she outed in her workplace, she would be fired.
Tough, but a competent lawyer should have no problem suing the employer's pants off.
And she would have to prove that she was fired for being gay. Her boss would need to find some other reason and then the court would need to decide what the truth was. Look at the former head of teacher training in Poland: fired not for being gay but for proposing for distribution a set of lesson plans which contained on lesson about tolerance and how it might be a good ideal to show tolerance to homosexuals.
2. She cannot do her taxes together with her partner.
Any particular reason why she should be able to?
Yes, submitting a joint tax statement almost always results in the couple paying less tax. Hetro couples can marry and submit joint tax statements. Homosexual couples can not and thus must pay more tax than straights. That is discrimination.
3. She cannot inquire about the health of her partner in hospital.
Actually she could, if they did the paperwork.
No, she could not. I've looked into this quite extensively because I've been living with my partner for the past six years. I can inquire at the hospital but they are required to tell me nothing (doctor/patient confidentiality obligations). The best option is to both have a power of attorney giving the right to take all actions regarding and gain all information related to the other partner’s health. Problem is that there is no way to enforce that access, the hospital can just say they want confirmation that the power of attorney has not been revoked and if the sick partner is unconscious that confirmation can not be given. And then there’s the body problem: dead bodies are returned to the deceased’s family. Which means that the partner has no say in anything. I know one case where a couple had been living together for three years but when one of them died in a traffic accident, the other partner couldn’t even go to the funeral because he wasn’t told where and when it was held.
In fact things can get extremely unpleasant after the death of one partner. Polish law does not recognise any common-law partner rights of inheritance, if there is no will (or a will which is not perfect in form) all of the estate goes to the necessary heirs, i.e. blood relatives. Hence the case where a couple had jointly bought an apartment and taken out a mortgage together, one of them died leaving an improperly made out will, so his share in the property automatically went to his parents not to his partner. Now the parents are taking action to force the surviving partner to move out so the apartment can be sold and they can get ‘their’ money. That is impossible to happen with a straight married couple.
4. She cannot pick the registered mail at the post office for her partner.
Horror!
Not actually even true. My partner regularly picks up my registered mail at the post office and vice-versa (we both have the same address on our ID). The only time the post office can get pissy about it is with letter from the VAT department of the tax office, no idea why.
As you can see, the dicrimination of gays in Poland really takes on very serious and dangerous forms!
Yes, being forced to pay more tax, being unable to have any say in one’s partner’s treatment, not being able to go to one’s partner’s funeral and being thrown out of the home one has made with one’s partner’s are not even the slightest bit serious.
Seriously though, the last three points could be solved by doing minor changes to the law and simply legislating that people who live together can inquire about each other's health, do taxes together or pick up mail. Still not a good reason to introduce a problematic institution of homosexual marriage.
The reason for either introducing gay marriage (or banning heterosexual marriage and stripping married couples of all special rights, I frankly don’t give a shit which is done) is that either one thinks that all people are equal and should have equal right or one supports forcing gays to wear pink triangles, not work in certain jobs, go to re-education camps and live only in certain areas. You opamp are on the same side as the Nazis, the only difference between you and them is that they used Mein Kampf as the book to base their bigotry on and you use a carefully edited reading of the bible to base your bigotry on.
Yes, submitting a joint tax statement almost always results in the couple paying less tax. Hetro couples can marry and submit joint tax statements. Homosexual couples can not and thus must pay more tax than straights.
As I look at this from a purely utilitarian point of view, my understanding is that married heterosexual couples should pay less tax, because they (at least potentially) contribute something valuable to the society, that is, children. (Consequently, there is some merit to the idea that the more children you have, the less tax you should pay). If you can now show that homosexual couples can (at least potentially) make equally valuable social contribitions, I'd be glad to hear it.
The stuff about inheritance may be bad, but as you note this can be solved by writing a will. So this is more of an inconvenience than an actual discriminatory practice; also note that the same applies to unmarried hererosexual couples. (And in my bigotry I find the story of parents trying to reclaim the appartment disgusting and repulsive.)
Not being able to have a say about your partner in hospital is bad, but equating that with pink triangles is a stretch.
^ Children are valuable to society? No they are not: they are an expense to society. For the first 20-odd years of their lives they do nothing but cost the state money, money which has to come from taxpayers. Children may be priceless emotionally but they are worse than worthless economically.
How about this for a more valuable contribution to society: a homosexual couple adopt two orphans from Zimbabwe, there are plenty now that the average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34. Those children then grow up in Poland. Instantly we've cut out double the cost of pre-natal care, the cost of giving birth and the costs of medical treatment for the first few years of life. At the moment those costs are paid by the tax payer. But the net result is that whatever benefits you think children bring society still come to society. Explain why this is not a more valuable social contribution.
As for your pink triangles comment, it's like this: either everybody is equal and nobody needs to wear any badges showing their inferior status because nobody has inferior status; or there are ubermenschen and untermenschen. You want the latter situation and I want the former.
Children are valuable to society? No they are not: they are an expense to society.
Ohhh, how cute! Man, people like you are the reason the Western Europe is rotting from wihin today (under the banner of progress and tolerance, of course).
If children are indeed economically worthless, we should get rid of them altogether (well, this is exactly what Western Europe has been doing for decades now). But pray tell, who will work for your retirement, if we don't have children today? And don't tell me that you have a retirement capital, because your capital will not be worth squat if there will be noone to make food for you in exchange for it.
For the first 20-odd years of their lives they do nothing but cost the state money, money which has to come from taxpayers.
Oh, really? Do the taxpayers pay for: children clothing, food, living space, medicine, toys, etc.? The taxpayers in Europe maybe pay partial costs of healthcare and education, which, as you can see from this handy calculator, amount to something like 15% of costs of raising child to the age of 18. Which, from the same website, is on the order of several hundred thousand dollars. So any tax break for parents are laughable when compared with the real costs of child raising. [This website is U.S.-centric, so cost calculation above the age of 18 becomes heavily skewed by the outragous costs of higher education there. Under the age of 18 my point stands though.]
No wonder nobody really wants to have children. Though everyone seems to be strangely concerned about demographical crisis.
How about this for a more valuable contribution to society: a homosexual couple adopt two orphans from Zimbabwe,
Yeah, that could work for me.
Except that it is better to import young adults from Zimbabwe. Instantly we cut out the tax-payer funded costs of medical care for say 10 years, education, and tax breaks for parents. So, why not skip the middleman?
opamp said...
Ohhh, how cute! Man, people like you are the reason the Western Europe is rotting from wihin today (under the banner of progress and tolerance, of course).
Western Europe? Why would you want to dance around the issue by using a phrase like ‘Western Europe’? We’ve already got you admitting that you are a bigot, why not now take the next step and say that people like me are the reason that white society is rotting from within? That is what you mean by ‘Western Europe’ isn’t it.
Alternatively you can just agree that the reason Catholic Europe is rotting from within is that the organisation which does most to fight against homosexuals is also the organisation which does the most to cover up for paedophiles, i.e. the Catholic church.
But pray tell, who will work for your retirement, if we don't have children today? And don't tell me that you have a retirement capital, because your capital will not be worth squat if there will be noone to make food for you in exchange for it.
Oh, trust me on this, there will be more than enough people coming out of Africa and Asia to work. Seen the demographics from there?
Oh, I’m sorry, you meant do I think that there will be enough white people to work for me when I get old. Well unlike you I do not judge people by their religion, sexuality or skin colour so I don’t care who does the work for which I pay to be done. Sorry that there might not be enough Aryans to service your old people’s home
Do the taxpayers pay for: children clothing, food, living space, medicine, toys, etc.? The taxpayers in Europe maybe pay partial costs of healthcare and education, which, as you can see from this handy calculator, amount to something like 15% of costs of raising child to the age of 18. Which, from the same website, is on the order of several hundred thousand dollars. So any tax break for parents are laughable when compared with the real costs of child raising
Well so what? People want to have children they can pay for those children. Why the fuck should they put their hand out to me to cover any of the cost of their decision to have children? Looking at your handy calculator I see that the average child will cost the taxpayer 15% of $535,000, i.e. $75,000. What a bargain that is! You can have children, leave the things to scream and cry everywhere you bring them and still ask me to give you 15PLN for every 100PLN you spend on the things. If you want children you pay for them. If you want my money, come and ask me to my face: don’t send the tax man to steal my money. You see me coming to your door asking you to pay 15% of the bill for food, living space, toys and medical care for my cats? No, they’re my cats, I chose to have them and I’ll pay for them. You can come begging at my door for money to pay for your children all you want, I’ll buy the clothes off your back for 1% more than the local second-hand clothes store pays me for them and you can keep that whole 1%.
No wonder nobody really wants to have children. Though everyone seems to be strangely concerned about demographical crisis.
Except that it is better to import young adults from Zimbabwe. Instantly we cut out the tax-payer funded costs of medical care for say 10 years, education, and tax breaks for parents. So, why not skip the middleman?
Sounds ideal for me, all of the benefits and none of the costs. But for a bigot like you the idea of lots of big strong black people (who aren’t even Catholics) coming to live in Europe must be hell!
Western Europe?
That part of Europe which wasn't under communist rule. In Western countries we can observe a spread of a very dangerous form of ideological idiocy, named tolerance or political correctness. Post-communist countries seem very resilient to it.
Sounds ideal for me, all of the benefits and none of the costs.
Heh. So to wrap up your post, you are essentially saying that since modern economy is about outsourcing non-essential activities, Europeans should outsource reproduction to Zimbabwe! (Well, they seem to have outsourced it to Arabic countries).
That idea -- a society made up of multicultural immigrants under the enlightented lead of the likes of you -- has been tried already in Western Europe, with known results. It leads to creating closed and xenophobic immigrant communities, which make a fertile ground for crime and radical ideology. Because, why should the immigrants be working their assess off, if they can simply cut your throat and take your wealth?
^ So now we have it opamp: you're scared of the big bad black man because you think that he will slit your throat and take all your money!
I love how you think that tolerance is a dangerous thing. You seem to forget that tolerance is the only thing which stops people like from being given a severe beating on a daily basis. Tolerance means that the people who actually know what Jesus said and try to keep to those simple rules do not allow fucktard little bigots like you to spread your views about how the hetrosexual white male is the ubermenschen on this planet. You are utterly pathetic, I pity you.
you're scared of the big bad black man because you think that he will slit your throat and take all your money!
Because we all know that these immigrant Parisian suburbs are peaceful neighborhoods, no?
You seem to forget that tolerance is the only thing which stops people like from being given a severe beating on a daily basis.
I always thought that this had something to do with morals or law. Your beloved immigrants (whom you want to outsource reproduction to) don't even have a notion of tolerance; they only have a notion of a weak enemy.
do not allow fucktard little bigots like you to spread your views
Ooohhh... How cute. Accusations of racism. Censorship. We are out of arguments, quick, gag the opponents!
^ Accusations of racism? Nobody needs to accuse you of being racist, it is obvious to anybody who reads your posts that you very clearly are a racist (look at your comments about immigrants).
Keep talking bigot, so far you've only shown that you hate gays, think all non-whites are inferior beings and that you think women are second-class humans. Perhaps you'd do better posting at StormFront or some KKK website, you certainly will find those idiots more receptive to your hate-speak.
I hope that if you ever get married your wife leaves you for another woman (a black Jewish woman preferably).
I really think this is starting to degenerate...
I think so. But that is what happens when one tries to have a reasoned rational debate with a poster who has the unreasonable mind and irrational hatred which characterise a bigot.
harry,
imho neither one of you has been a credit to your respective sides on this issue for quite some time (on this thread at least) and both of you have been spouting a lot of nonsense that you will probably not want brought up in the future.
As for me, I really loved the march! I hope that everyone else had as much fun as all of us tele tubbies did (in American English perhaps TV Tubbies? But nothing to do with fat transvestites!)
Tinky Winky xxx
TV Tubbies
Is that a TransVestite Tubby?
And Mike - nonsense on this blog stays forever. So when we say dumb stuff it's left hanging there, dangling in the wind....
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