The debate on LGBT rights in Poland is not a red herring. It is a question of whether gays and lesbians have the same human rights as the rest of Polish society. It’s the question that demands an answer from liberal parties – tells Liberte! Renata Kim, a Newsweek Polska editor.
Before PiS and the right wing have embarked in Poland on a large-scale anti-immigrant propaganda project, more than a half of all Poles had been understanding of helping migrants fleeing wars. After all, what other nation in the world could better understand what war means for a person than the Polish nation?
In social sciences, extremism is defined so vaguely that anybody can hide anything behind it. Anything can be outside the “mainstream”. However, if status quo is the mainstream, well – who is not an extremist then? Extremes simply do not meet, and to be an extreme defender of morality cannot be punishable.
For over three decades, the position of the Constitutional Tribunal seemed to be solidly grounded in the Polish institutional landscape and the pluralistic public discourse. However, with the recent demolition of the Tribunal, we are faced with an end of an era.
People cannot always decide for themselves whether a message is false or distorted. No one is solely in possession of the final truth. However, getting the facts straight and actively pursuing “counter speech” is a task not only for the media but also for civil society and each individual user.
The government in Warsaw is considered to be one of the most conservative in the EU. In the country with practically no regulations for LGBT+ community, Law and Justice – the ruling party – manages to find the way to limit their rights even further.
We love our country — it’s the best country in the world — but the idea of an overseeing government that isn’t ours makes us feel like there’s something infringing on our Americanness. How does something like that happen, what are we scared of, and how can you reach across the divide if it starts happening in your country?
According to the results of a representative population survey carried out by “Spinter Research” on behalf of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, 48% of Lithuanians wish their children pursued a career in entrepreneurship. Yet, the same group associates entrepreneurship with risk, innovation, and hard work.
What sets liberals apart from representatives of other ideological options is a strong trust in the capabilities of an individual and the key role of protecting the rights of an individual. Building a liberal community is currently of utmost importance, both in Poland and Europe in general.
Putin’s Russia is the first country that has deliberately made the carnival a cornerstone of its domestic and foreign policies – in fact, of its entire post-Soviet political architecture. The first country to have established, one decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a full-fledged TV-run postmodern dictatorship – a so-called “managed democracy”.
