Lech Walesa shocks Poland with anti-gay words
WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Lech Walesa, the Polish democracy icon and Nobel peace prize winner, has sparked outrage in Poland by saying that gays have no right to a prominent role in politics and that as a minority they need to "adjust to smaller things."
Some commentators are now suggesting that Walesa, the leading figure in Poland's successful democracy struggle against communism, has irreparably harmed his legacy.
Walesa said in a television interview on Friday that he believes gays have no right to sit on the front benches in Parliament and, if represented at all, should sit in the back, "and even behind a wall."
"They have to know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things. And not rise to the greatest heights, the greatest hours, the greatest provocations, spoiling things for the others and taking (what they want) from the majority," he told the private broadcaster TVN during a discussion of gay rights. "I don't agree to this and I will never agree to it."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_POLAND_WALESA_GAY_RIGHTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-03-07-09-36
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)He's off my heroes list.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)He screwed over his Solidarity colleagues once he "got his." He had a hand in bringing Friedman-style "shock therapy" to Poland. Public-owned industry were asset-stripped and sold off.
no_hypocrisy
(46,010 posts)66 dmhlt
(1,941 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)He's a raging bigot on many levels. Right wing on many others.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)On economic policy, he is a Freidmanite.
On social policy, he is a reactionary Catholic who would let a woman with a terminal pregnancy die rather than allow her an abortion to save her life.