A leading Polish anti-abortion activist has been ordered by a judge to apologise for calling former taoiseach Leo Varadkar a “deviant” on live television.
Kaja Godek said homosexuality was a “deviation” on a Polish talkshow on May 30th, 2018, shortly after Ireland’s abortion referendum.
Five months later, a group of 15 Polish LGBTQ+ activists filed a libel action against Ms Godek, saying her remarks had infringed their rights.
Warsaw’s regional court has now agreed that Ms Godek, by calling homosexuality a “deviation”, had libelled the complainants and ordered her to apologise.
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The ruling was the first time a Polish court recognised that homophobic hate speech has a personally harming effect.
Ms Godek has already announced plans to appeal the ruling.
In the 2018 television discussion, she said she was not surprised by the outcome of Ireland’s abortion vote given Mr Varadkar had flaunted his “bizarre” sexual orientation and shown “his perversion to the people”.
Asked by the host if she was saying homosexuals were perverted, Ms Godek continued: “Yes, yes. If the prime minister of Ireland declares that he has a male sexual partner, if it is accepted as normal, it is monstrous that such a country should be defined as a Catholic country.”
In later remarks, she described Mr Varadkar’s homosexuality as an “ailment”.
Ms Godek is head of the Życie i Rodzina (“life and family”) foundation, a leading anti-abortion group. She made her remarks during a time of a campaign – backed by members of the last national conservative government – for so-called “LGBT-free zones” in Poland.
In testimony last week, Ms Godek described herself as a victim of the “homosexual lobby”. She said the libel case against her had exposed her to hate speech and hateful conduct.
She told the court she was not sure if Mr Varadkar was really gay or merely pretending to be so for “political gain”.
She said her traditional Catholic views justified her remarks, which she said she made in the public interest to warn parents.
Contacted by The Irish Times, Mr Varadakar said he had no role in the case and that he had “been called much worse in Ireland”.
“I am a big fan of Poland and I hope the government there honours its pledges to recognise same-sex partnerships soon,” he said. “This would be a very positive move, given the backsliding on equal rights in other parts of the world.”
