Gay MP compares new justice minister to Taliban

18/11/2011
Submitted by ILGA-Europe

Original article: http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul...ares-new-justice-minister-to-Taliban

With the new cabinet set to be sworn in on Friday, Robert Biedron, MP for the liberal Palikot's Movement party, has compared Poland's new Minister of Justice Jaroslaw Gowin with the Islamist militants.

Biedron, who is Poland's first openly gay MP, said that Krakow-born Jaroslaw Gowin would have been better-suited to a post as leader of a prospective “ministry of the Catholic religion.”

In an interview with Polish Radio, Biedron went on to compare Gowin, who was announced as the new justice minister yesterday by PM Tusk, with Islamist militants.

“The Taliban too want to restrict women's rights concerning reproduction,” he said.

“They pray for embryos and are against civil partnerships,” he added.

Jaroslaw Gowin edited the prestigious Catholic monthly Znak from 1995-2005, a journal which is nevertheless regarded as being moderate and aimed at the intelligentsia.

This summer Gowin was one of a small group of members of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party to speak out against civil partnerships.

After a draft bill calling for legal endorsement of the unions was submitted by the Democratic Left Alliance, Gowin declared that he was against such a law.

“I will certainly not put my hand up in support of such a bill,” he said in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

“The whole project is not really for the welfare of specific individuals, but for a social revolution, a departure from traditional morality.” (nh/pg)

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