LEADERS OF Poland?s Catholic Church have condemned a series of gay rights protests, after a march was violently broken up by police and counter-demonstrators.

?Every person who confesses to homosexuality should be accorded the same rights as everyone else,? said Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan. ?But it cannot be treated equally from an ethical viewpoint since this would damage society. This isn?t because the Church thinks so; it?s because, where social progress is concerned, as well as the life and survival of society, such tendencies certainly cannot be presented as normal to family life.?

Up to 20 gay and lesbian demonstrators were arrested when police broke up an equal rights march in the western city after it was declared illegal by the local mayor and county governor. Officials ruled that the protest would endanger public order by threatening property and impeding city communications, but made no attempt to prevent an aggressive counter-demonstration by the youth wing of the Polish Families League. Similar marches were staged in late November in several other Polish cities, although an attempt to rally near Gdansk?s shipyards was also prohibited by city authorities.

Archbishop Gadecki told Poland?s Catholic information agency (KAI) that equality was ?a very relative idea?, adding that a distinction should be made between ?legal and ethical equality?.

Gays and lesbians have frequently complained of discrimination in Poland, where the predominant Catholic Church has rejected requests for a special pastoral service for homosexuals, and opposed clauses in the 1997 constitution barring discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

The country?s Civil Rights spokesman, Andrzej Zoll, deplored the police dispersal of the marches, and said he would support a lawsuit by gay activists against the Poznan governor, Andrzej Nowakowski, for illegally banning the rally.

?It isn?t the banned peaceful gathering which posed a significant threat to life, health and property, but the illegal counter-demonstration which openly tried to prevent others from exercising their constitutional freedom,? Professor Zoll said in a statement. ?The public authorities, through their unlawful ban, effectively placed themselves at the service of those whose shouts blatantly recalled the methods and practices of fascism.?
Jonathan Luxmoore, Warsaw