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Polish Gay Rights Group Slams 'Homophobic' Textbook
A gay rights group has urged the Polish government to withdraw a book authorised for use in secondary schools claiming that portrays homosexuality as an illness that can be cured.
LGBT group Association for Diversity said the textbook, one
of two authorised recently for use in family and sexual education classes, expresses
the traditionally negative view of homosexuality espoused by Poland's powerful
Catholic Church.
The education ministry shrugged off the complaint, saying
textbooks were approved on the advice of experts and individual teachers were
free to choose which ones they used.
"(The book) remains silent on the problems of
homophobia and discrimination and presents the theory that homosexuality is
something one can reject and that one can return to 'normality',"
'Diversity' spokesman Przemek Szczeplocki said.
"This kind of attitude deepens the lack of acceptance
for gays, lesbians and bisexuals and perpetuates a belief that some sexual
orientations are weird, and this is hurtful," he said.
A previous edition of the book had gone further by putting
homosexuality on a par with incest and paedophilia, he added.