The Supreme Administrative Court (NSA), Poland’s court of last resort for administrative issues, rejected appeals by four municipalities that challenged a lower court’s ruling overturning the LGBT-free zones. The challenges to the ruling had been brought by the public prosecutor's office, the ultra-conservative think-tank Ordo Iuris, and nine of the municipalities involved; the court threw out four of those appeals.
The zones arose in 2019 following a declaration in support of LGBTQ rights by Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski that infuriated conservative leaders in the country’s Catholic community, although analysts have noted the timing of the reaction coincided with the release of a damning documentary on sexual abuse by the church. The Law and Justice Party (PiS), the party of Polish President Andrzej Duda, is very close to the Catholic Church and would likely have been hurt in the polls.
Duda later attacked LGBTQ rights, calling it an ideology “even more destructive” than communism. The PiS was founded by Lech Kaczyński, a former vice-chairman of the Solidarnosc trade union that led the 1980s movement to destroy Polish socialism, and their anti-communist allies in the Catholic Church rallied Poles against socialism by demanding the government allow them to discriminate against LGBTQ people and to end abortion-on-demand.
At their height, the LGBT-free zones encompassed nearly one-third of Poland, concentrated in the southeast. They have banned essentially all displays of LGBT identity, including rainbow Pride flags, in a manner similar to the “Don’t Say Gay” law passed in the US state of Florida earlier this year, but much more expansive. However, the tide began to turn against them after the European Commission threatened to withhold funding from municipalities that passed such restrictions, saying they violate EU non-discrimination laws on grounds of sexual orientation.
Poland's Human Rights Ombudsman began challenging the laws, and the lower courts upheld their finding that they were illegal, although several provinces have already voluntarily rescinded their laws.