Once the Supreme Court gets its first (but certainly not its last) Handmaid, I give us ten years until we turn into Poland.
Then again, ten years may be optimistic:
In little over a year, hundreds of regions across Poland — covering about a third of the country, and more than 10 million citizens — have transformed themselves, overnight, into so-called “LGBT-free zones.”
Duzniak, left, and Głowacka hope to marry in Poland, but the country currently prohibits any kind of formal same-sex unions.
These areas, where opposition to LGBT “ideology” is symbolically written into law at state and local levels, have put Poland on a collision course with the European Union and forced sister cities, allies and watchdogs across the continent to recoil in condemnation. Local laws have been contested, and some communities that introduced such legislation have seen their EU funding blocked.
But the impact is felt most painfully — and daily — by the gay, lesbian and transgender Poles who live in towns that would prefer they simply weren’t there.
Poland’s leaders have been reading up furiously on Nazi extermination strategies. This is exactly how it began for the Jews:
“The zones themselves don’t have any legal power, they’re mostly symbolic,” he notes. No signs go up overnight; no businesses become immediately empowered to refuse custom. “(But) it encourages the opposite-minded people to speak out again us, and be more active.”
Oh, and just in case you think this is just a few towns run by a handful of rightwing Trumpian-style nut cases, here’s a map that demonstrates how far the open display of hatred and bigotry has spread in Poland:
