‘Queer Eye’ star Antoni Porowski calls out Poland’s ‘absurd’ anti-LGBT+ crackdown

Attacks on LGBT+ rights in Poland, the place cities are declaring themselves LGBT-free zones, are “absurd,” stated “Queer Eye” star Antoni Porowski, an actor with Polish roots who on Tuesday known as on the nation to respect its homosexual and trans residents.

The actor and actuality TV star has been selling a petition from advocacy group All Out that asks the European Union to sentence the crackdown.

The petition, with greater than 300,000 signatures, was delivered on Tuesday to European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli, the identical day the small Polish city of Krasnik voted itself “free from LGBT ideology.”

It is one in every of dozens of municipalities making comparable declarations in Poland, the place President Andrzej Duda is a vocal critic of homosexual and trans rights and campaigned in opposition to same-sex adoption and LGBT+ training in colleges.

“If Poland wants to be part of the EU, then they have to behave accordingly,” stated Porowski, who was born in Canada to Polish mother and father. Poland has been an EU member since 2004.

“To have its own people excluding its own population, it seems so absurd and counterintuitive to Polish history,” Porowski advised the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

LGBT+ rights are divisive in Poland, the place the ruling Law & Justice celebration and the highly effective Catholic church have denounced them as a international “ideology” threatening conventional values.

The situation has turn out to be more and more contentious amongst Poland’s extra progressive European neighbors.

Norway stated final week that not one of the almost 100 Polish municipalities which have issued LGBT-free resolutions could be getting grants below a program funded by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Porowski, who grew up in Montreal talking Polish at dwelling, stated the battle contradicts Poland’s proud historical past.

“I remember my father telling me that Poland wasn’t on the map for 400 years, yet they kept their faith, they kept their country,” he stated. “(Now) they’re fighting against their own. For me it’s incredibly frustrating.”

The 36-year-old actor admitted he wasn’t all the time pleased with his ancestry. Working in New York, he stated he felt stress to anglicize his final identify, one thing that may have left his father heartbroken.

But after his success because the meals professional on Netflix’s makeover present “Queer Eye,” Porowski started to embrace his heritage and converse up for LGBT+ individuals.

Hearing about rocks thrown at protesters at a Polish homosexual Pride march final 12 months, Porowski stated: “I feel like I have a responsibility.”

“When you hear personal stories like that, it makes it a lot more difficult for me personally to turn a blind eye, and that’s where you feel like you have to do something.”

Porowski, who lives within the United States, additionally stated he’s involved about what the upcoming presidential election may imply for LGBT+ individuals.

The administration of Republican incumbent President Donald Trump has sought to ban trans individuals from enlisting within the army, tried to stroll again health-care protections and argued in opposition to office discrimination.

“I’m worried about my rights as well,” Porowski stated. “What’s going to happen if we have four more years of that?”

(This story has been printed from a wire company feed with out modifications to the textual content.)

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