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Poland Rejects Proposed Gay Civil Unions

By Marcin Sobczyk

Poland’s legislators rejected three pieces of draft legislation that would have recognized same-sex civil unions, a defeat for the country’s prime minister who had thrown his weight behind the proposed laws but was outvoted by those citing Catholic teaching. The debate in Parliament over the bills was a sign of the tug-of-war between more liberal-minded and secular politicians and conservatives who support traditional religious values that has characterized Poland’s approach to a range of social issues as it reintegrates with Western Europe.

Poland’s first openly gay lawmaker, Robert Biedron of the Palikot Movement party, presented two of the bills in the lower house, known as Sejm. A third bill was introduced by the ruling Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. It was the first time the Polish Parliament has considered granting some rights that married people enjoy to homosexual couples. The two civil-unions bills presented by Mr. Biedron were defeated by firm majorities. But the Civic Platform legislation was defeated narrowly, with 211 MPs in the 460-seat lower house voting to allow the bill to move forward. About a fifth of the ruling party’s house members refused to back it and teamed up with opposition conservatives to produce 228 votes against it. All of the legislation would have allowed couples to register partnerships and gain the right to inherit property tax-free and to make life decisions in the other partner’s name, among other privileges. Even though the legislation was expected to be mostly used by opposite-sex couples, the change would have been profound for gay relationships that currently enjoy no explicit recognition in Polish law.

Shortly before the final vote, a quarrel erupted between Mr. Tusk and his justice minister, Jaroslaw Gowin, who argued that the legislation was incompatible with Poland’s constitution, which calls for the protection of marriage as a union of man and woman. Mr. Gowin is seen as an informal leader of a conservative group within the ruling party and has previously spoken against public funding of artificial insemination and a Council of Europe convention on preventing domestic violence, which the government eventually signed.

Mr. Tusk urged the house to ignore Mr. Gowin’s objections and allow the legislation to proceed.

“It’s not the government’s position that the bills violate the constitution,” he said. “One can’t close one’s eyes to social facts. We have marriages described by the law and guaranteed by the constitution, we have informal couples, and we have homosexual relationships, as well as singles. It seems obvious that the current legal setup doesn’t reflect that those social facts exist.”

In the 2011 parliamentary campaign, Mr. Tusk sought to lure more liberal voters by promising to put the legislation before Parliament if he won. The ruling Civic Platform party won the most votes, but has to rely on a partner, the Peasants Party, for a majority in the lower house. On civil unions, its coalition partner Friday sided with the conservatives. Opponents said the primary goal of couples is to procreate, which is why same-sex unions can’t be recognized. “Society can’t fund a sweet existence to unstable, barren unions of people from whom it doesn’t benefit only because of the sexual attachment that binds them,” said Krystyna Pawlowicz of the opposition Law and Justice party.

To back up their viewpoint, some of the opponents pointed to the concept of natural law, which isn’t, however, among the sources of law enumerated in the Polish constitution. Ms. Pawlowicz also said the bills sought to “exhibitionistically allow for displays, in the public sphere, of sexual inclinations that violate the sense of aesthetics and morality.”