Gay Parade in Warsaw Meets Jeers From Some

Gay Parade in Warsaw Meets Jeers From Some
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: July 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/world/europe/18poland.html?th&emc=th


WARSAW — Rainbow flags flying, Village People and Madonna songs pumping from the floats, drag queens waving like royalty to the crowds: some things are the same at gay pride parades everywhere. But the thousands of police officers holding back clusters of jeering, egg-throwing youths here on Saturday served as a reminder that Poland was not quite Holland when it came to gay demonstrations.

Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals not just from Poland but from all over Europe and North America marched and danced their way through downtown Warsaw, calling for greater tolerance and equal rights, in particular the right to marry or at least to be joined in civil partnerships.

The event, the first Europewide gay pride parade held in a former Communist bloc country, revealed a place where gays and lesbians aspired to the level of acceptance found in Western European cities like Amsterdam and London, yet remained part of a deeply Catholic society that was still significantly more opposed to homosexuality than in the West and where politicians did not seem ready, or perhaps willing, to change that.

It was most likely the largest gathering of its kind in Polish history, but its 8,000 participants made up just a fraction of the 50,000 people who took part in last year’s parade, in Zurich. For the most part, Saturday’s parade went smoothly, but it was met with resistance from a population ill at ease with open displays of homosexuality. Many gay men and lesbians here say they continue to fear repercussions from coming out of the closet.

“I lived in Berlin and, there and here, they are simply two different worlds,” said Tomasz Baczkowski, head of the Equality Foundation and an organizer of this year’s EuroPride event.

It was just five years ago that Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president who died in a plane crash in April, banned Warsaw’s annual gay pride parade in 2005 when he was the city’s mayor. Mr. Baczkowski was among the plaintiffs in a 2007 lawsuit before the European Court of Human Rights that successfully challenged the ban.

Since then, Mr. Baczkowski said, “things have developed quickly, but not quickly enough for us.” He said he hoped to see Poland legalize gay marriages within three to four years, as Argentina did on Thursday.

But a sociology professor at Warsaw University, Ireneusz Krzeminski, said the political culture was not yet ready.

“In Poland,” he said, “we still do not have major politicians directed toward changing this rather hostile attitude toward Polish gays.”

Mr. Krzeminski, who is gay himself, said he found hope in the millions of Poles who have traveled abroad since the country joined the European Union in 2004, especially those who lived and worked in other countries like Britain, and who saw being gay in a much more normal and positive context.

Wojtek Kobylski, 42, said he had seen improvement not just in Warsaw but outside the capital in more conservative corners of Poland, where he performs in drag.

“Every year there are fewer negative reactions,” said Mr. Kobylski, who was wearing a long platinum-blond wig and three-inch-long fake eyelashes as parade volunteers decked out their floats with colorful balloons and D.J.’s tested their sound systems.

After performing at a show in Warsaw, he was invited to perform in the city of Olsztyn, in the northeastern part of the country, said Mr. Kobylski, who as Tatiana sings old Russian and Polish songs. Now he appears there once a month. “People see that the gay clubs are more friendly,” he said, “that these are the places where there are no fights and you can have fun.”

Yet the parade got off to an ugly start. As it reached Senatorska and Marszalkowska Streets downtown, youths chanted obscenities and yelled at the marchers to leave, before hurling eggs and plastic bottles at the first float to pass.

About 2,000 police officers were there to control the crowd, one for every four people who took part in the march. A Swiss man, who said he was there to show his support, remarked that he had never seen so much security at a gay pride parade in his life.

Another parade organizer, Krzysztof Kliszczynski, said that was because “it’s still happening that gays and lesbians are being attacked on the streets.” A counterdemonstration by the conservative, right-wing group All-Polish Youth drew 200 to 300 participants, according to police estimates.

“Polish society is much more conservative than the establishment,” said the group’s president, Robert Winnicki, 25. “Polish society is more passive. People do not take part in the public debate. We are the voice of the majority.”

The Warsaw police detained eight people for upsetting the parade by attacking police officers, throwing eggs or tearing down flags. One participant was detained for drug possession. Those disturbances were the exception, however, on an afternoon whose scorching temperatures hardly dented the festive atmosphere.

The march was demure compared to similar events in cities like New York or Berlin. A few men decided to forgo shirts in the heat, while another group dressed in feathered carnival outfits, but otherwise it was a clothed and orderly procession.

“Maybe we have a little different morality, but I can’t imagine many homosexuals here in Poland who want to be naked on a platform. It’s not our tradition,” said Joanna Hald, 41, a translator with a black bandana and a battle-ax tattoo, who was riding with a lesbian motorcycle group.

She had lived in Denmark for 18 years, where she started an Internet forum for Polish lesbians, Ms. Hald said. Asked what brought her back to Poland, she replied, “My wife.”

She said several other women had decided not to ride because they feared they would be recognized and “might get fired.”

“I’m a freelancer,” Ms. Hald said, “so I can’t get fired.”

Joanna Berendt contributed reporting.