Polish President Andrzej Duda has
pledged to defend children from “LGBT ideology” if elected to a
second term in office.
Poland's presidential election was
moved from May 10 to June 28 as the coronavirus pandemic spread
across Europe. (Poland has had fewer cases of COVID-19 than most of
its neighbors, including Germany, Belarus, and Russia, but cases
continue to climb.)
According to The
Guardian, Duda made an appeal to his conservative base in
releasing a so-called “family charter.”
In the charter, Duda states his
opposition to same-sex marriage and adoption by gay and lesbian
couples. His charter also seeks to “ban the propagation of LGBT
ideology” in schools and other public institutions. And he
described the movement to secure LGBT rights as “a foreign
ideology” and compared it to Communist propaganda in the Soviet
Union.
Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of
Warsaw, jumped into the race for president after it was delayed. Last
year, he signed a declaration against LGBT discrimination in the
capital.
Duda, a Catholic, is also aligned with
the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is vocally opposed to
LGBT rights.
Neither candidate is expected to win
the required majority needed to avoid a run-off.
(Related: Gay
couple hands out rainbow masks on the streets of Poland.)