Conservative activist ordered by court to apologise for insulting LGBT+ people

A prominent conservative activist, Kaja Godek, has been ordered by a court to apologise to a group of LGBT+ people who sued her for public statements in which she described homosexuality as a “perversion” that “often goes hand in hand with paedophilia”.

The group who brought the case – which was launched in 2018 – celebrated the ruling as a breakthrough for LGBT+ rights in Poland. However, Godek – who plans to appeal against the judgement – says that it represents a threat to free speech.

In one of the statements in question, Godek was in 2018 discussing Ireland’s then prime minister, Leo Varadkar, who is gay, during an appearance on Polsat, one of Poland’s main TV stations. She accused him of “flaunting his strange orientation…publicly showing his perversion to people”.

In 2019, during another appearance on Polsat, she declared that “the homolobby is interested in the sexualization of children because homosexuality very often goes hand in hand with paedophilia”. Later the same year, she said that “gays want to adopt children because they want to molest and rape them”.

Although Poland does have laws criminalising hate speech, they do not cover sexual identity or gender orientation. A group of 16 LGBT+ people decided to bring a civil case against Godek, accusing her of violating their personal rights with her remarks.

In 2021, their case was rejected by a district court in Warsaw, which ruled that they had no claim against Godek because she did not refer to them specifically. The judge also argued that the group who brought the case had not proved that they themselves are homosexual, reports news website OKO.press.

However, the plaintiffs successfully appealed against that decision, with the appeals court in Warsaw ruling in 2022 that they did have legitimacy in bringing the case against Godek. The judge overturned the initial verdict and ordered the lower court to reconsider the case.

In a ruling issued on Tuesday, the district court in Warsaw this time found Godek guilty. It ordered her to issue an apology and to refrain from making similar statements in future. A justification for the ruling has not yet been published.

“I feel grateful because we finally heard from a judge representing the Polish state that the use of certain phrases is unacceptable, harmful and exceeds the limits of freedom of speech,” one of the plaintiffs, Witold Klaus, told OKO.press. “This is important for everyone in this country, not just LGBT+ people.”

“We can only hope that this will be an incentive for changes in protection against hatred under the penal code,” he added, referring to the fact that the government is currently considering legislation to add sexual orientation and gender to Poland’s criminal hate crime laws.

Yesterday’s ruling, however, can still be appealed, and Godek immediately announced that she planned to do so. “I will not apologise; I will appeal,” she wrote, asking supporters to donate to her foundation in order to help cover her legal costs.

Godek warned that the ruling could set a dangerous precedent by allowing people to sue someone for making critical remarks that are not directed against a specific person or persons. “You won’t be able to present an opinion on anything,” she warned.

Poland has for the last five years running been ranked as the worst country in the European Union for LGBT+ people, due to a lack of legal rights but also because of the anti-LGBT+ rhetoric promoted by the conservative former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

A new, more liberal ruling coalition replaced PiS in office in December 2023 and promised to strengthen LGBT+ rights. However, it has so far failed to pass any such legislation, with the coalition partners unable to agree, for example, on whether and how to introduce same-sex civil partnerships.

Last year, in a separate case, the head of a conservative group that drives vans bearing slogans linking LGBT people to paedophilia around Polish cities was convicted of defamation and ordered to apologise.

Main image credit: Max Bashyrov/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 2.0)