Lech Kaczynski speaks to reporters last fall after being elected president of Poland. Kaczynski refused to grant permits for a gay Pride parade when he was mayor of Warsaw and has spoken out against “promoting homosexuality.”

Kaczynski shares responsibility for violence toward gays because
of his comments about homosexuality, activists say

BERLIN Gay rights advocates protested during a speech by Poland's conservative President Lech Kaczynski on March 9, holding placards and accusing him of sharing responsibility for violence towards gays.

The protesters entered the auditorium at Berlin's Humboldt University while preliminary speakers were addressing the audience. Kaczynski spoke without interruption after one of the activists was permitted to speak from the podium.

"He shares responsibility for violence against gays and lesbians," said Holger Wicht, editor of Siegessaeule, a Berlin gay publication. "This person is an inciter. He is stirring up Catholicism, which leads to exclusion."

Several protesters stood in the back while Kaczynski spoke and held placards but did not interrupt him and there were no clashes with police or the Polish leader's entourage.

As Warsaw mayor, Kaczynski refused parade permits for gay rights marches, although gay activists held their rallies anyway. He was elected president in October on a platform of social conservatism and Roman Catholic values combined with preservation of welfare-state benefits.

During a question and answer period after the speech, he defended denying the parade permissions. "There are no grounds to promote homosexual attitudes," he said. "If they were to win the upper hand in society, then mankind would die out."

Kaczynski was visiting Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Horst Koehler on topics including energy security and proposals for a Berlin center to memorialize Germans and others expelled from their homes at the end of World War II. Kaczynski opposes the center.

Talks on the center were cordial, Kaczynski said, adding that "relations have improved" between the two countries.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, March 17, 2006.