Polish Bishops Reject LGBT+ Declaration

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WARSAW, Poland (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Polish bishops are condemning a charter that claims to introduce protections for "LGBT rights" but instead proposes discrimination against those that are not supportive of it, pushing immoral and unchaste sexual education to children.

Aimed at implementing anti-discrimination measures and introducing sexual education that complies with the World Health Organization (WHO) standards, Warsaw's mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, signed the "LGBT+ Declaration," in February.

In 2016, Poland has been accused by the European Union's Commission for Human Rights of violating women's human rights. A report by Nils Muižnieks, the commissioner of the European Council for Human Rights, focused mainly on Poland's limits on abortion and access to contraception. The report also demanded compulsory sexual education, in accordance with EU standards.

The WHO's sex-ed program is a "comprehensive sexuality education," and it describes it as a "continuing education process that starts at an early age." Not only is this program aimed at educating children on all aspects of sexuality and sexual behavior, but they also include lessons that analyze how well abortion and gender identity are accepted legally and culturally.

The entire program presupposes abortion and contraception as basic human rights.

In response to the declaration, the Polish Bishops' Conference released a lengthy statement of 11 points blasting the "so-called LGBT Charter" and calling for its withdrawal.

Church Militant spoke with Jan Franczak, a Catholic and translator of numerous books, who said Warsaw's mayor has promised to make Warsaw "tolerant" and noted, "He's doing it."

Trzaskowski's deputy mayor, Pawel Rabiej, is an active homosexual living in a same-sex "marriage" with Michał Cessanis. Franczak noted that the homosexual lobby is very active and keeps attacking from all sides and perspectives. A new pro-homosexual political party, Wiosna, was recently started in Poland.

The opposition to the LGBT+ Declaration was painted by the U.S. News as a political move by Poland's Law and Justice Party (PiS) to retain their popularity.

"PiS has targeted LGBT rights as it strives to reverse a decline in popularity amid corruption allegations against financial regulators and questions about party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski's business dealings, among other things," according to the U.S. News report.

Franczak disagreed with the U.S. News report saying, "It was the parents and pro-family organizations that reacted first to the 'LBGT+ Declaration.'"

It was only after that the PiS Party and the Polish Bishops' Conference spoke out against it.

"The most dangerous aspect of the declaration is spoiling the children," Franczak said.

In the bishops' statement, they first acknowledged their position is not a "lack of respect for the dignity" of LGBT people, but borne out of concern "for the common good of the whole society, and especially for the respect of the rights of parents and children."

In a move that is likely to raise the ire of the pro-homosexual lobby, the bishops refused to use the term "LGBT."

"The Church does not use the name LGBT, because in it itself is contained in the questioning the Christian vision of man," the bishops stated.

They explained that the proposed alternative vision does not agree with the truth about human nature and refers only to "imaginary ideological ideas."

Further, they caution against the acceptance of gender ideology as a society, saying, "Not only are they completely alien to European civilization, but if they were to become the basis of social norms, they would be a threat to the future of our continent."

The bishops are most concerned over the introduction of the sex education classes that would introduce gender identity and psychosexual identity concepts to young children.

"This project can easily deprive parents of the influence on raising their children and become a corrupting program for them," they wrote, adding:

This upbringing will ultimately lead to brutal familiarization of the child with the anatomy and physiology of the sexual sphere, with the techniques of achieving sexual satisfaction, followed by techniques of physical intercourse, learning methods of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and "unwanted" pregnancy. This education is also aimed at familiarizing children with various forms of sexual relations, and therefore not only the parental relationship between man and woman, but also with loneliness, bisexual, homosexual behavior, disapproval of sexes in the form of various forms of transsexualism.

The bishops' statement stands as a dire warning pointing to the harm to the children that could result from presenting a distorted view of human sexuality and the true understanding of the two genders, male and female. If a child is exposed to these erroneous ideologies, it "distorts its emotional development and causes moral unrest," adding:

In the process of education, the child should, first of all, know the beauty of love, which does not focus on itself, but teaches people to see others and acquire the ability to share with them joy, also at the cost of their own sacrifices — focusing on yourself, selfish pleasures and satisfying your needs.

The bishops also blasted the charter for its built-in hypocrisy by promoting discrimination against others for proposing discrimination in hiring employees or contractors who are not themselves LGBT or supportive of it.

The bishops opposed the "announcement of preferential treatment by employers associated with 'Rainbow Employee Networks' by local communities and attempts to exclude all entrepreneurs suspected of lack of tolerance from contractors," they wrote, "which may mean people professing a system of values other than those presented by the self-government authorities, including those recorded in Constitution of the Republic of Poland."

"We would like to remind you that the Constitution contains, inter alia, the principle of impartiality of the public authorities," the bishops said.

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