In a televised address Monday night, Polish President Lech Kaczynski showed a clip depicting a gay couple (pictured) from Queens getting married in Toronto five years ago. Kaczynski’s anti-gay speech was meant to warn Polish conservatives about what lies ahead if Poland ratifies the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. Here's TV news coverage of the gay marriage storm gathering at Poland's borders.
The two men in the video, Brian Fay, a documentary producer, and Dr. Thomas Moulton, an oncologist, had no idea their wedding footage and a photo of their wedding certificate were used in the speech until reporters started calling Tuesday morning for comments. Both men are outspoken gay rights advocates; Fay is on the committee for the annual gay-friendly “All Inclusive St. Patrick's Day Parade” in Queens.
Today Poland’s consul general in New York, Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, agreed to meet with Fay (next week) and seemed apologetic in an e-mail, thanking Fay for his “conciliatory approach and the empathy [he has] demonstrated from the first moment this pitiful incident surfaced.” A Polish newspaper editor, explained to the Times that Poland's pro-Western Prime Minister is at odds with the conservative Kaczynski, whose homophobic speech was an attempt to mobilize his “rural, Catholic, conservative base in eastern Poland.”
