Trump ambassador condemns homophobia in Poland. Hours later, she praises one of the most poisonous homophobic Popes in history
Georgette Mosbacher, US ambassador to Poland. (Attila Husejnow/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)
In what started off as a pleasant surprise, Trump ambassador Georgette Mosbacher condemned homophobia in Poland. Hours later, she was praising one of the most homophobic Popes in history.
Mosbacher is the Trump-appointed US ambassador to Poland, and on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) she took part in a video for the US embassy in Warsaw holding a sign which read: “Equality for all.”
The embassy wrote on Twitter that it “stands with other diplomatic missions in Poland in affirming the dignity and equality of all people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics”.
Poland has seen increasingly extreme anti-LGBT+ sentiment in recent years.
On the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, the U.S. Embassy stands with other diplomatic missions in Poland in affirming the dignity and equality of all people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. pic.twitter.com/2QonEfriMD
— US Embassy Warsaw (@USEmbassyWarsaw) May 17, 2020
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) – whose poisonous anti-LGBT+ policies were central to its election campaign last year – were voted into power as one-third of Poland self-declared as “LGBT-free zones”.
The Trump administration has consistently worked to strip the rights of LGBT+ people in the US, so a Trump-appointed ambassador opposing homophobia in Poland seemed too good to be true.
Unfortunately, it was.
Just hours later, Georgette Mosbacher declared that Pope John Paul II, one of the most poisonous and homophobic Popes in history, was an “inspiration”.
She gushed on Twitter: “100 years ago the exceptional Karol Wojtyła was born in Wadowice.
“St Pope John Paul II played a huge role in the fall of communism in Europe, defended human rights, and was a champion of peace.
“He was, and still is, an inspiration for billions of people around the world.”
100 years ago the exceptional Karol Wojtyła was born in Wadowice. St. Pope John Paul II played a huge role in the fall of communism in Europe, defended human rights, and was a champion of peace. He was, and still is, an inspiration for billions of people around the world. pic.twitter.com/1sidbfJvSq— Ambasador Mark Brzezinski (@USAmbPoland) May 18, 2020
Pope John Paul II famously described LGBT+ rights advances like as same-sex marriage as a “new ideology of evil”.
In his 2005 book Memory and Identity, published the year he died, he wrote: “It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this [same-sex marriage] is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.”
In 1986, he approved the release of a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which said homosexuality “is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder”.
The homophobic former Pope was canonised as a saint in 2013.
