MP Anna Grodzka (R) at the opening session of the 'Stop Gender Ideology' cross-parliamentary group. Photo: PAP/Bartlomiej Zborowski
During the first session of the group on Wednesday, potential members were called on to sign a declaration confirming their opposition to policies including same sex civil partnerships and the adoption of children by homosexual couples.
Grodzka, who is a member of the liberal Your Movement party, had wanted to take part in the group's sessions so as to be able to debate the issues with other MPs.
However, on being told that she must sign the declaration, Grodzka announced to the group that she would not do so and expressed her regret at being excluded.
“You're trying to create a demon from the ideology of gender, but there is no such demon,” Grodzka said.
“I came to the group to talk, but no one wants to talk.”
However, MP from minority conservative party United Poland Andrzej Dera commented that “you cannot be a member of a parliamentary group that's aim is to restrict the propagation of gender ideology, if you are a supporter of that ideology.”
Gender studies controversy
In early January, a panel of Polish academics named 'gender' as 2013's 'Word of the Year'.
Gender became a buzzword in the media after Archbishop Jozef Michalik, head of the Polish Episcopate, criticised the “new ideology of gender” at universities, in the wake of a paedophilia scandal in the Church.
“You have heard of adults abusing children and this kind of evil is not to be tolerated, but no one asks about the causes of this,” he said during a sermon at Wroclaw Cathedral in October 2013.
Besides gender studies, Archbishop Michalik blamed pornography, divorce and “the most aggressive Polish feminists who scoff at the Church and years of traditional ethics, who promote abortion and struggle against the traditional model of the family and marital fidelity.”
As well as opposing same sex civil partnerships, members of the new 'Stop Gender Ideology' parliamentary committee want to prevent gender studies from advancing beyond the university sphere into secondary schools and primary schools.
Anna Grodzka is Poland's first transsexual MP. She has served as a member of the liberal, anticlerical Your Movememt party since 2011. (nh)
Source: TVN