23:05 14 October 2020
Irish town cuts ties with Polish twin
The Fermoy Twinning Committee in Co Cork has officially terminated its twinning relationship with Nowa Dęba in Poland which has been designated as an “LGBT-free zone.” The twinning relationship between Fermoy in Co Cork and Nowa Dęba in Poland has been terminated after 14 years.
“LGBT-free zone” refers to some regions of Poland which, from the beginning of 2019, began declaring themselves unwelcoming of an alleged “LGBT ideology.” As of October 2020, some 100 municipalities (including Poland’s five out of 16 provinces), encompassing about a third of the country, have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones.”
Since gaining control of the Polish parliament on the basis of a fragile majority in 2015, the governing pro-Catholic right-wing nationalist and populist Law and Justice (PiS) party and its loyal ally, President Andrzej Duda, along with Catholic Polish archbishops have repeatedly attacked LGBT+ people. According to the latest statistics, the vast majority of Poles are staunchly Catholic. PiS has been accused of using “enemies of Poland” rhetoric, including bashing immigrants, especially before elections.
PiS’s autocratic de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński has recently claimed that Ireland has become a “Catholic wilderness with rampant LGBT ideology” and warned that Poland could follow if it does not defend itself.
