Polish windsurfer Zofia Klepacka, who medaled at the 2012 Olympics, is opposed to a new LGBT anti-discrimination declaration in Warsaw because she said that’s not what her grandfather fought the Nazis for.
This is literally what Klepacka wrote on social media after Warsaw’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, signed an anti-LGBT discrimination document, rare in Eastern Euorpe.
“I say NO to the promotion of LGBT environments and will defend Polish tradition,” she wrote. “Did my grandfather fight for such a Warsaw in the Uprising [1944]? I don’t think so … Mr. Mayor, maybe you should take care of sport in Warsaw, since it is struggling.”
Yes, that’s exactly what the Poles fought for, said Wanda Traczyk-Stawska, 91, who survived the 1944 Uprising when the Nazis killed tens of thousands of Poles and reduced much of Warsaw to rubble.
“We in the Uprising fought above all for regaining the independence of our homeland, but also for what was most important to us. That we should be treated not as subhuman, but that each of us should be a respectable person. For our human dignity,” Traczyk-Stawska said in an interview with Wirtualna Polska.
“Anyone who knows what human dignity is must remember that freedom is its foundation. That you must not disrespect anyone because they have a different skin color, different views or sexual orientation. If it does not hurt anyone, it has the right to be so.”
Klepacka stayed defiant after Facebook administrators removed her post, saying she was going to continued to support “traditional values.” Last year she applauded a right-wing publication that equated LGBT people to Nazis.
This is the not the first sports-related backlash to the mayor’s pro-LGBT stance. Fans of a local Warsaw soccer team unveiled a “free from faggots” banner last month.
