Poland to introduce adoption ban for gay people, even as single parents

Warsaw, Poland – People living in same-sex couples will be banned from adopting children even as single parents, the Polish government announced this week.

Poland prepares adoption ban for gay people

Adoption for gay couples is already illegal in Poland, but some were still able to bypass the rules by adopting children as single parents. This option will now be explicitly banned as well.

“We are preparing a change where people living in cohabitation with a person of the same sex could not adopt a child, so a homosexual couple will not be able to adopt a child,” announced deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik.

Detailing the government’s plan, Wojcik said adopting agencies in Poland will soon be required to pay “special attention” to whether or not the person seeking to adopt a child is living in a gay relationship.

Gay rights have been at the center of a fiery debate in Poland over the past two years, with critics accusing the government led by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party of scapegoating and stigmatising the LGBT community and of restricting their rights to mobilise their conservative base.

“LGBT Freedom Zone”

While PiS chairman and Poland’s de-facto leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski described LGBT rights as a “foreign ideology” contrary to Polish conservative and Christian values, President Andrzej Duda notoriously compared the pro-LGBT rights movement to a type of “neo-Bolshevism”, sparking fears among activists and rights groups that a wider crackdown could soon follow.

The Polish government’s stance on LGBT issues has also put Warsaw on a collision course with Brussels.

A few days ago, the European Parliament symbolically voted to declare the EU an “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone”. The move is seen as a direct response to a host of Polish municipalities passing resolutions declaring themselves “LGBT-free zones” – itself a response to liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski’s LGBT+ Declaration.