Polish parliament narrowly defeats civil unions
bills
Hilary White (lifesitenews.com, 28-1-2013)
WARSAW, January 28, 2013– In a close vote, Poland’s lower house of
parliament (Sejm) has rejected legislation to create same-sex civil
partnerships. The Civil Platform bill, supported by Prime Minister Donald Tusk
and brought forward by the ruling Civic Platform party, was rejected in the
first sitting by 228 to 211.
Two other bills that would have recognized same-sex unions, which were
brought forward by homosexual MP Robert Biedron of the Palikot Movement party,
were also rejected by solid majorities.
Tusk said in defence of the legislation, “One can’t close one’s eyes to
social facts. We have marriages described by the law and guaranteed by the
constitution, we have informal couples, and we have homosexual relationships,
as well as singles. It seems obvious that the current legal setup doesn’t
reflect that those social facts exist.”
Taken together, the bills would have granted unmarried, cohabiting couples
the right to officially register as legal entities with rights, including
inheritance of property without taxation and access to information normally
available only to married couples. Supporters of the government bill argued
that the proposals were “conservative” on the grounds that they did not attempt
to legalise same-sex “marriage” or adoption.
Conservatives rejected the bills as an attack on the family and the
traditional identification of marriage with procreation. The government’s bill
was also opposed by the justice minister, Jaroslaw Gowin, who argued that the
legislation was incompatible with Poland’s constitution, Article 18, which
defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman.
“Society can’t fund a sweet existence to unstable, barren unions of people
from whom it doesn’t benefit only because of the sexual attachment that binds
them,” said Krystyna Pawlowicz of the opposition Law and Justice party.
The bills, Pawlowicz said, seek to “exhibitionistically allow for displays,
in the public sphere, of sexual inclinations that violate the sense of
aesthetics and morality.”
The bills’ promoters promised to bring the proposals back to Parliament in
the near future.
A 2009 poll found that at the time there was little support in the general
public for same-sex unions. It found that only 14 per cent polled supported
same-sex “marriage.” Seventy-five percent were opposed and 11 per cent unsure.
In November, the Polish Supreme Court ruled that the surviving member of a
same-sex partnering could take over the lease on a jointly rented apartment in
the event one should die.
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