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Kosiniak-Kamysz refuses to vote for LGBT couples’ right to adopt children

Kosiniak-Kamysz refuses to vote for LGBT couples’ right to adopt children

Image source: © canva
Marta Grzeszczuk,
18.04.2024 16:00

Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has stated that he will not support the adoption of children by same-sex couples.

On 17 April on TVN24, Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz was asked about the issue of regulating the rights of same-sex unions. The PSL politician stated: "I will not vote in favour of same-sex marriages, and I will not vote for the adoption of children by LGBT couples. I will be against it; I have always said so clearly".

Kosiniak-Kamysz will not vote for adoption of children in rainbow families

Some politicians in PSL seem to prioritise their personal beliefs over the opinions of their voters and often fail to check if their presumptions align with reality. For instance, Marek Sawicki recently suggested that the status of same-sex unions can be settled with 'notarial contracts', ignoring that not all issues can be resolved this way. Additionally, he recommended sterilisation for people who do not want to have children - which is illegal for women in Poland.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who is divorced but ‘supports traditional values', is against allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. However, he fails to acknowledge there are still more families in Poland who are willing to adopt than there are children available for adoption.

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According to Izabela Rutkowska, a psychologist from the Society of Children’s Friends organisation, around 50 children are placed with adoptive families every year, and the list of waiting parents is longer than the number of children proposed for adoption.

What does adoption look like in Poland?

Rutkowska explained, "Currently, around 60 families are waiting to adopt a child. They are at different stages of the queue. Some families have recently completed their training; others have been waiting several years for a child." The majority of children in care in Poland have an unregulated legal situation, so their adoption is not possible.

The PSL's defence of so-called 'traditional values' actually makes life harder for children who grow up in rainbow families. These are often families where one biological parent raises the child while the other parent is considered a legal stranger. This not only causes difficulties in day-to-day life but also creates a potentially traumatic situation if the legal guardian parent passes away.

"Rainbow families do not need permission to exist"

Summing up the meeting with representatives of rainbow families on 4 March in the Sejm, Equality Minister Katarzyna Kotula wrote on X: "Rainbow families do not need permission to exist because they are already among us". The Campaign Against Homophobia organisation estimates that there are around 50,000 children with same-sex parents in Poland.

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Poland is among the five European Union member states that do not permit same-sex couples to formalise their relationships. This issue is also not regulated in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, and Slovakia. In December 2023, the European Court of Human Rights passed a ruling in a case against Poland filed by five Polish same-sex couples who requested legal recognition of their relationships. The ruling stated that Poland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights and was obligated to establish legal protection for same-sex couples.

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