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Gay news: 'Polish Secret Service discussed Prime Minister Kaczynski's homosexuality'
Jaroslaw Kaczynski
Late Polish president's allegedly gay brother runs to replace him
The outwardly homophobic but allegedly gay twin brother of Poland's late President Lech Kaczynski has announced that he will run to be elected in his place.
Lech Kaczynski died in a plane crash earlier this month and his brother Jaroslaw, 60, who was prime minster during 2006 and 2007, said he would contest the June 20 presidential election in order to continue Lech's personal mission.
The right-wing Law and Justice party, which the brothers founded in 2001, is allied with David Cameron's MEPs in the European parliament and revelations of its homophobia are creating difficulties for the Tory leader during his election campaign.
Last year, the key role of leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists, part of the eight-nation group that includes the Tories, went to the Law and Justice party's Michal Kaminski, who was seen in a 2000 video clip describing gays as "fags".
In April 2007, Jaroslaw Kaczynski responded to a EU resolution condemning Poland for drafting a law to dismiss teachers who "promoted homosexuality".
He said: "Such propaganda should not be in schools; it definitely doesn't serve youth well. It's not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals - that's obvious."
Lech Kaczynski repeatedly banned gay rights marches in Warsaw when he was the city's mayor, and as President, campaigned against the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that it would force Poland to accept gay marriages.
"If that kind of approach to sexual life were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear," he said in 2007 when accused of homophobia.
But his brother Jaroslaw was apparently outed by the Polish media in 2006, as Gay City News reported at the time:
"Poland's second-most important newspaper, Rzeczpolita, published documents - some only recently declassified, and some that were leaked - from the files of the Polish Secret Service that discussed Prime Minister Kaczynski's homosexuality.
"As part of an investigation, begun in 1992, of right-wing political parties that, the documents said, 'could threaten democracy,' a Secret Service department then headed by Colonel Jan Lesiak reported, 'It is advisable to establish if Jaroslaw Kaczynski remains in a long-term homosexual relationship and, if so, who his partner is."
Last week, David Cameron announced that gay MP and shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert would be sent to Poland to persuade the Law and Justice party to embark on a "journey" to moderate its views.
