Hatred towards LGBT communities in Poland is mainly fuelled by a right-wing government and the Catholic Church.

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MAREK Jedraszewski, Archbishop of Krakow, above, yesterday (Friday)  warned of a “rainbow plague” amid ongoing tensions in Poland over gay rights.

He made the comments during a homily to mark the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.

We also know that our land is thankfully no longer affected by the red plague (taken to be a reference to communism), which does not mean that there is no new one that wants to control our souls, our hearts and minds.

This new “plague” would be “not Marxist, Bolshevik, but born of the same spirit, neo-Marxist. Not red, but rainbow,” Jedraszewski said.

Jedraszewski was roundly condemned by theologian Jaroslaw Makowski, who said:

Words like these shouldn’t have been said by anyone, not by a priest, not by a bishop, not even by any decent Christian. That is why it is so outrageous and, at the same time, it shows which direction the Polish church is heading toward.

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But news coming out of Poland is not all bad. Last month we reported that an openly gay Polish politician – Pavel Rabiej, above, said that he will ask prosecutors to investigate anti-gay stickers that a far-right nationalist weekly magazine, Gazeta Polska, plans to distribute to its readers.

Since then the push against the magazine has gained considerable momentum, and the magazine’s homophobia has been successfully challenged in court by LGBT campaigners.

According to PinkNews the Warsaw District Court ordered the Gazeta Polska magazine to cease distributing the controversial stickers, which activists say have tapped in to rising homophobia in Poland.

The court agreed to the preliminary motion from LGBT+ campaigners who had argued that the stickers violate rights by:

Creating a sense of threat and discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The ruling notes that the country’s constitution which requires equal treatment and prohibits discrimination, including on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Marcin Cieminski and Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram of Clifford Chance represented LGBT+ groups on a pro bono basis.

Cieminski said in a release:

We are delighted with the court’s decision to withdraw the supplement to Gazeta Polska and a two-week deadline has been set to file a lawsuit against the publisher of the newspaper for violation of the applicant’s personal rights.

Gregorczyk-Abrams added:

The court ruled that the publication of the sticker ‘LGBT free zone’ may cause far-reaching effects in the form of exclusion of the applicant and other persons belonging to the LGBT community from the public sphere, as well as further harassment and discrimination.

Clifford Chance’s Global Director of Inclusion Tiernan Brady said:

We are really proud of Sylwia and Marcin using their legal expertise to champion our values.

However, Gazeta Polska editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz has vowed not to back down.

In a statement, he branded the decision:

The greatest act of censorship in the history of the Third Polish Republic.

Furthermore he claimed that LGBT+ people were trying to block sales of the magazine entirely.

This is the effect of neo-Marxist ideologists operating under the rainbow flag. We have signals that attacks on sales and attempts to intimidate sellers by political censors are underway. These are criminal activities.

He claimed that Poland is seeing “more and more cases of censorship” that:

Concern not only our publications, but anyone who criticises the LGBT ideology in any way. If we give in now, we may never have a free press in Poland.