Sebastian Kaleta, a deputy with the Solidarna Polska party, was speaking after US ambassador to Warsaw Georgette Mosbacher said Poland was on the wrong side of history when it comes to LGBT issues.
Her comments came after dozens of ambassadors in an open letter voiced support for efforts to raise public awareness of LGBT rights in the country.
Kaleta said: “The Western world has become submerged by leftist ideology, but this does not give it the right to demand that sovereign countries such as Poland” should do the same.
He added: “Minorities in Poland have always been respected, which was not always the case in the West.”
In an interview with Polish news website Wirtualna Polska, Mosbacher said that she had great respect for Poland’s religious tradition, but that human rights were universal regardless of religion.
She also said that abroad Poland had the reputation of a country that is unfriendly to sexual minorities, which could turn entrepreneurs from Western countries away, the website reported.
On Sunday, the envoys of 50 countries, including Poland's EU partners, signed an open letter voicing support for efforts "to raise public awareness of issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community and other communities in Poland facing similar challenges."
Mosbacher tweeted the letter, and wrote: "Human Rights are not an ideology - they are universal. 50 Ambassadors and representatives agree."
On Monday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “To the dear ambassadors, I can only say that tolerance belongs to the Polish DNA.”
“Nobody needs to teach us tolerance, because we are a nation that has learned such tolerance for centuries and we have given many testimonies to the history of such tolerance,” Morawiecki said at a news conference.
Also on Monday, a Polish deputy foreign minister said that discrimination was banned under the Polish constitution and that this principle is “fully respected.”
LGBT rights have recently become the subject of an increasingly intense debate in Poland.
Civil unions and same-sex marriages are not legal in Poland.
(jh/pk)
Source: Wirtualna Polska