By Gudrun Schultz
BERLIN, Germany, March 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Polish President Lech Kaczynski was targeted by gay rights activists during his visit to Berlin’s Humboldt University earlier this week, Deutsche Welle reported yesterday.
Dozens of protesters delayed his speech by about half an hour, chanting “solidarity without exclusion” in reference to the slogan of the 1980’s labour movement that challenged communism in the country. The activists were protesting what they called his “homophobic policies.”
President Kaczynski banned a gay pride march in Warsaw last year, while he was mayor of the capital. The action outraged Polish gays.
The president responded to the demonstrators by saying he did not believe homosexuality should be encouraged because gay relationships cannot produce children.
“I do not plan to persecute homosexuals or to hinder their careers,” he said. “But there is no reason to encourage it because it would mean that mankind would slowly die out.”
During his two-day visit to Germany, President Kaczynski had sharp criticism for the European Union, condemning it as an “artificial creation” with little power or authority.
“My opinion of the EU is the following: A super state which polarizes countries’ areas of competence but which at the same time is rather helpless because it only has a symbolic budget,” he told the German newspaper Die Welt.
He also said Europeans do not share one common outlook, despite EU reliance on that supposition.
“There is no European public opinion, rather national public opinions,” he said.
Poland is considered one of the strongest of the pre-dominantly eastern-European nations to join the union in 2004. The Catholic nation’s opposition to gay unions and abortion rights has led to conflict with the EU in the two years since.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Homosexual Activists Lobby EU to Force Poland to Allow Gay Pride Parade
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05060904.html
EU Threatens Poland for Electing Pro-family President
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102607.html