Gay And Trans Lawmakers Sit In Polish Parliament’s Front Row

Last week, Nobel Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said Polish gays should have no rights in Parliament and should be put “behind a wall.”

Janusz Palikot (left), Anna Grodzka (center), and Robert Biedron (right).

Image by Czarek Sokolowski / AP

During a television interview on Friday, Lech Walesa, long considered a hero by many in Poland and the international community for his efforts during the anti-communist struggle in the 1980s, shocked followers by making starkly anti-gay comments. “They have to know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things,” he said. “And not rise to the greatest heights, the greatest hours, the greatest provocations, spoiling things for the others and taking (what they want) from the majority.”

Walesa, a devout Catholic, even suggested that gays should sit “behind a wall” in the Polish parliament rather than expect a seat alongside fellow lawmakers. Despite the public outcry his comments have sparked, Walesa refuses to apologize.

On Wednesday, Janusz Palikot, the leader of Poland’s Progressive Movement Party, coordinated some seating changes so that Robert Biedron, a gay rights activist, and MP Anna Grodzka, a trans woman, could sit in the parliament’s front row rather than their usual third row spot.

Grodzka and Biedron in February.

Image by Czarek Sokolowski / AP