A party in Poland’s right-wing coalition government has been accused of inciting hatred against the LGBTQ community, after it posted a tweet about a Pride parade featuring a clip of a gun-wielding Chuck Norris and a vow to “protect children from depravity.”
Suwerenna Polska (Sovereign Poland), a Catholic-nationalist party in Poland’s right-wing populist ruling coalition, posted the tweet after the Warsaw Equality Parade, the country’s biggest Pride event, on Saturday.
Videos by VICE
The tweet, sent from the party’s official Twitter account, featured footage from a livestream of the Equality Parade by opposition MP Franciszek Sterczewski, who is shown speaking out in defence of LGBTQ rights. The footage is then interrupted with a scene from the 90s TV show Walker, Texas Ranger, showing Chuck Norris’ titular character looking through the scope of his rifle. The text on the tweet reads: “We will protect children from depravity! Rainbow Bolshevism is not allowed!”
The tweet’s violent imagery shocked opposition MPs and the LGBTQ community, which has already been the target of a sustained campaign of demonisation by the right-wing populist government and its coalition partners in recent years. Poland is ranked the worst country in the European Union for LGBTQ rights – a position it has held since 2020 – according to the annual Rainbow Europe index released by ILGA-Europe, a Brussels-based NGO. The report’s authors noted a lack of legal protections, including no recognition of same-sex partnerships or hate crime laws for gender identity or sexuality, and hate speech from government figures.
Sterczewski said that he intended to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office over the tweet, which he saw as part of a continued demonisation of LGBTQ people. “I believe it is incitement to violence, hate speech. Another attempt to erase the LGBT community… from public space,” he told Polish news site OKO.press.
Suwerenna Polska deleted the tweet shortly after his comments on Monday, but has not commented on the controversy, and did not respond to a VICE News request for comment. The party, which has 20 seats in Poland’s 460-seat parliament, outlines its anti-LGBTQ politics on its website, which states that “no one can be forced to raise children according to LGBT ideology,” and declares its opposition to gay couples being allowed to adopt children or marry.
For Polish LGBTQ groups, the tweet was a worrying sign that the governing coalition intends to double-down on its strategy of attacking their community, as it did during successive election campaigns between 2018-20, painting “LGBT ideology” as a foreign import that posed a threat to the traditional Polish family unit. The campaigns whipped up a wave of hatred against LGBTQ which spilled over into violence, including attacks on Pride events.
“It’s just cynical manipulation and fearmongering feeding off of the voters’
ignorance. It’s aimed at the opposition, but the ultimate price will be paid by us – the
LGBT+ community,” said Hubert Sobecki from Love Does Not Exclude, a group campaigning for marriage equality.
“It’s just a cruel, calculated game with our lives at stake.”
Maja Heban, a trans rights activist and member of Love Does Not Exclude, said there needed to be consequences for those who posted the “atrocious footage.” She said the video conveyed the message: “If you support equality, you deserve to die.”
“A ruling coalition party can’t just threaten citizens and members of the opposition without any repercussions,” she said.
