The following are excerpts from a Do Rzeczy commentary piece by Attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski, President of Ordo Iuris Institute.
The draft amendment to the Penal Code introduces provisions in Poland similar to those that in Germany were the basis for the prosecution of Rev. Prof. Dariusz Oko, and in Great Britain are the reason for the detention and arrest of social media users and trials of clergy for sermons on Christian sexual ethics.
The Polish government wants to push ideological censorship through the Sejm before Christmas. The bill will be put to the first vote this week – so that Poles busy with Christmas preparations do not have time to react.
To the representative of the LGBT movement – the originators of the new law – the Polish Minister of Justice (Adam Bodnar) said: “I would like to sincerely apologize to you for the wrong you have suffered at the hands of the Polish state (…) You can count on maximum support within the framework of the work of the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor’s office and myself as the Prosecutor General.”
Deputy Minister of Justice Krzysztof Śmiszek assured the LGBT movement that changes to “regulations on combating hate speech and crimes motivated by homophobia and transphobia are a priority for us.”
What is a promise to LGBT activists is a threat to all of us – our freedom of speech, our freedom to proclaim and teach our faith, our freedom to speak the truth.
But the law is dangerous for everyone. Asked by journalists, Minister Adam Bodnar confirmed that the new law will threaten to imprison, for example, Legia fans for the anti-immigrant banner “Refugees Welcome” or Polonia fans for the banner “LGBT-free zone.”
The Ordo Iuris Institute has been preparing for this moment for a long time. We will not allow freedom of speech and the right to criticize harmful LGBT+ political movements, gender ideology or irresponsible migration policy to be trampled. We also firmly oppose restrictions on the freedom to preach and teach the faith.
We have not only published the book “HATE SPEECH – the Trojan Horse of the Cultural Revolution,” but we have also collected examples of the ruthless application of such laws in other countries, written a number of opinions, and are ready to equip all defenders of freedom with a full range of arguments.
Due to the acceleration of parliamentary work, our memorandum with arguments against the bill has already been sent to every member of the Sejm.
Once the new law is passed and the new guidelines are implemented, people working in the justice system – police officers, prosecutors, judges, lawyers and legal advisers – will be required to participate in training during which LGBT activists will convince them that any criticism of “progressive” postulates constitutes “hate speech.”
Separate workshops and exercises will be sent to schools to instill a similar belief in our children – that criticism of gender ideology is an evil that should be eliminated from society.
In parallel, a tight system of permanent monitoring, reporting, notifying, admonishing and ensuring that “inappropriate” statements are meticulously eliminated and their authors punished and stigmatized as “dangerous criminals” will be created. In Orwell’s world, any statement could be considered “hateful.”
From the very beginning, Ordo Iuris lawyers have been closely observing and commenting on the work on the government’s draft law on “hate speech” that has been ongoing since last year. As soon as the draft law was made public, we published its analysis and sent a formal opinion to the government, in which we indicated that due to its numerous flaws and the attack on the very foundations of freedom, the draft should be rejected at first reading.
The bill primarily poses a huge threat to the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, which is to be sacrificed in the name of the interests of the LGBT lobby. It also destabilizes the concept of gender, which is to be understood in the spirit of the gender-based Istanbul Convention. As a result, criticism of allowing men with gender identity disorders to compete in sports with women or to use women’s toilets may be considered “hate speech” on the basis of “gender.” Moreover, the bill, contrary to declarations, leads to systemic discrimination against citizens who do not belong to the LGBT community.
Freedom of speech is the foundation of all civil rights and liberties. If we lose it, we will not be able to be sure of any of our other liberties. We will be at the mercy of leftist censors who are just waiting to be able to lock up in prison anyone who dares to say out loud that there are only two sexes. We will wake up in a gendered, totalitarian nightmare from which there will be no escape. We cannot allow this.
