Recognizing Validity of “The Foreign”

An Example

Two persons are married in Sweden, a Member State of the European Union, where they habitually reside, build a family and buy a family home. Both are nationals of Member States of the EU, which means that each of them has citizenship of the European Union (EU). For professional and personal reasons, the spouses are considering moving to Poland – another EU Member State and a Contracting Party to the European Convention of Human Rights. There they could spend some time in the Polish spouse’s country of origin and take care of her aging parents. There is just one concern. Their relationship is perceived as part of a political plot against the Polish State itself. The reason for this is that they are two women, married to each other.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights in Poland and the neighbouring region of the Baltic States have developed into an issue of political polarization. In June of 2020, Andrzej Duda, the then-campaigning President of Poland announced:

The approach of the Polish President to LGBT rights is not new but echoes the ideas of the leader of the ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, who stressed in 2019 that ideas about LGBT rights are coming from “outside” and they are potentially harmful to the Polish State:

The guided rhetoric raises serious issues about the responsibility of State leaders who stigmatize a minority group as “one of the main threats to morality, family and nation”. A survey undertaken by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) revealed that only 4% of LGBT persons in Poland believe that their government is combating prejudice and discrimination against them. 68% of the Polish LGBT respondents considered that intolerance has gradually increased.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association rank States according to the degree of progress achieved for the rights of LGBT people.