Lech Kaczynski dies in plane crash

One dwarfish homophobe less in the world (calm down - I'm talking about the one on the left). Of the evil Polish ex-child stars, Lech is the straight twin; his even more repulsive brother, Jaroslav, is the one rumoured to be gay. He's still alive.

Still, as the Tesco ads always say: Every little helps.

At last...

...a charitable way to waste your time, and improve your vocabulary. Click here.

As you can see, the labels below are quite irrelevant and are merely attached to this post to draw in the unwary and allow them to do something useful for a few moments.

Odd bedfellows

In the wacky Tweedledum and Tweedledee world of post-modern Poland, it seems only natural that Tinky Winky and Goethe should find themselves sharing the same rather incommodious bed of censorship. The purple Teletubby and the great German poet apparently both run the risk of being banned from Polish schools. Along with Kafka, Dostoevsky, Gombrowicz and, er, Gustav Herling-Grudzinski.

We all know about Tinky Winky's suspiciously gay skin colour and handbag, but Goethe? According to Miroslaw Orzechowski, leading member of the deputy prime minister's Family League and convinced creationist, he's a dangerous libertine. How so? Well, Faust has sex before marriage, while young Werther tries to get his leg over a married woman. The door's over there, Johann Wolfgang, you filthy beast. And the others? Kafka? A nihilist. Dostoevsky? Apologist for a criminal - just read Crime and Punishment. (No, on second thoughts, don't. You might do something naughty.) Gombrowicz? Gay. (Gay?) Gustav Herling-Grudzinski? Nasty stuff about gulags (as though you didn't know).

But all is not lost. Prime minister Kaczynski (the straight one, or maybe not - I just can't tell them apart) appears to be becoming aware of the ridiculous figure his gang of drooling bigots is cutting outside the Polish borders, and may put his stocky little foot down. This probably won't worry Orzechowski (the very name is music), who is also working on excluding all gays from state employment. Good thing there's still a division between church and state, Miroslaw!

And we are here as on a darkling plain...

The situation for gays in Eastern Europe is getting worse, and we're nowhere near the end of it, as can be seen from this article, which describes the growing homophobia in Latvia, Poland and Russia.( See my posts below, Protecting children, Polish style and To Moscow and back (sharpish) for more examples of this madness).

Sam Harris, in The End of Faith, argues that the real problem is not fundamentalism, but the respect given to the moderate voices of irrationality, which legitimise fundamentalism by asserting that even though the acts of individual fundamentalists may be abhorrent the belief system on which they're based has god-given validity.

I find Harris's argument convincing. And I'm convinced that, when it comes to homophobia, the fundamentalism of these people in eastern Europe is sustained not only by the usual religious suspects but also, for example, by the decision of the Mayor of Milan to withdraw the city's patronage, after 21 years, from the Gay Cinema Festival. It's a small thing, barely a blip on the cultural calendar of Italy, let alone Europe, but that's all the more reason to support it. The Mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, one of Berlusconi's most unpopular ministers during his 'government', is often spoken of as a potential leader of the centre-left when the corrupt buffoon finally hands in his mason's hammer and resigns.

Vittorio Sgarbi, motor-mouth, art critic and assessore per la cultura of Milan council, who was all in favour of the event, says that denying patronage is counter-productive and only draws attention to the festival. This may be true. But it also, and this is far more worrying, legitimises anti-gay feeling. Each time a figure of authority behaves in this way, the irrational hatred of rabid gangs of gay-bashers (see photograph) receives implicit backing.


Moratti also refused to support a gay tennis open last year unless the word gay was removed from the poster. It might have been more appropriate to remove open. On the other hand, as a member of Forza Italia, she's used to misleading publicity.

Protecting children, Polish style

In line with recent attempts by the Polish government to outlaw any mention of homosexuality in schools, a certain Ewa Sowinska, the crackpot person responsible for children’s rights in Poland (including, apparently, the right not be informed), has ordered an investigation by infant psychologists into the sexual orientation of Tinky Winky.

For those of you who don’t watch The Teletubbies on a regular basis, Tinky Winky is the purple puppet with the handbag (so no big prizes for guessing there). The inarticulate antenna-ed one has already been outed by the recently defunct Jerry Falwell (see Good riddance, below). It’s a relief to know that the spirit of eternal vigilance in the face of all things gay didn’t go to, er, heaven with him.

Personally, I’ve always had my suspicions about Bugs Bunny. Now that you’re one with the prime mover, Jerry, maybe you can send Ewa a little inside information.

Guess which one is gay!

Now that Poland is attempting to ban discussions on homosexuality in schools and educational institutions across the country, with teachers facing the sack, fines or imprisonment, it might be worth reiterating the information in this article, written by Doug Ireland last October. The article begins:

Poland's homophobic Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski-the identical twin brother of Polish President Lech Kaczynski-was outed as a homosexual in major Polish media last week in the midst of a political crisis that threatened to cause his government's downfall....

The gay one's on the left.