Sebastian Fabijański will not go to the Equality Parade. He has the right to do so, but his arguments are bullshit [OPINIA]

Sebastian Fabijański gave an interview to Wirtualna Polska a few days ago to talk about his upcoming directorial debut. However, it wasn’t the subject of “Hawaii” that will be remembered most from this conversation. The interviewer, Filip Borowiak, at one point asked the actor if he planned to take part in this year’s Equality Parade. Fabijański replied without hesitation that he had no plans, and then began a monologue that illustrates the actor’s strange worldview.

Sebastian Fabijański: a doubting man

The 36-year-old initially admitted that he was “totally tolerant” of all minorities, but I would like to say right away that tolerance alone is not enough to make all LGBT+ people feel comfortable in our country. This change in public discourse is not yet so visible, but there is a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. This was noticed by Hubert Sobecki from the Love Does Not Exclude Association, who was a guest on Sunday in the “Wstasz i Weekend” program on TVN24, where he spoke about Pride Month. In a post on Instagram, he noted that Justyna Sieklucka, the host of the conversation, said that “tolerance is not enough”, which should be heard much more in the discussion about the rights of LGBT+ people in Poland.

However, it seems that Sebastian Fabijański does not see this difference and goes on to say directly that in his opinion “there is something disturbing about the idea and institution of LGBT”. Initially, after hearing this sentence, I thought that his opinion fits perfectly with the propaganda that Polish Television, Polish Radio and Tadeusz Rydzyk’s media serve us on a daily basis. Well, “LGBT” is not an idea or an institution, but an abbreviation referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

He further stated that he had the impression that someone, but it is not known who, wants to obtain “some strong … benefits” on the basis of “very noble intentions”. And I really don’t know who the actor had in mind here. Organizations that organize Equality Parades? I have never been a member of such an association, but I know that it is made up of people who run such an initiative from the bottom up and their main goal is to implement the postulates that can be found on the Warsaw website. For the lazy, I will now mention a few of them, including: protection against discrimination and exclusion as a duty of the state, strengthening legal protection against hate speech and crimes, marriage and civil partnership as the right of every citizen, or gender equality as the basis of a democratic state.

He later emphasized that he is not a fan of conspiracy theories, but does not exclude the possibility that they may turn out to be true. He also compared the “LGBT institution” to the topic of vaccination against coronavirus, or to how the Catholic church works. This is so absurd that I will not comment further on it. The speaker himself described himself as a “doubting man”, which I partially understand, because we live in uncertain times, but it is very inappropriate for a famous person to question actions to improve the rights of LGBT+ people, arguing that “someone has obtained strong benefits” will not improve the situation of rainbow people in any way.

Interestingly, the interviewer did not contradict his words, and these apparently appealed to some Internet users who see nothing wrong with Fabijański’s statement. Below the interview we can read the following comment:

To a large extent, I identify with the views of Mr. Fabijański. He answered the question in an elegant and cultured way, and answered in accordance with his convictions. Balanced, calm, non-aggressive… It’s nice to hear!

I also think that he spoke in a non-invasive way and of course he has the right to his own opinion, but the arguments he wants to support his thesis are plain nonsense. I do not know where Fabijański was so uncertain about this topic, but it is quite possible that this is the aftermath of last year’s scandal with Rafalala, in which the actor took part. The most famous transgender woman in Poland published a recording of a meeting with a famous actor. The celebrity does not hide the fact that she is a sex worker, which she often talks about in her social media, which led to speculation that Fabijański would have an affair with her.

The actor gave a lot of interviews at that time, in which he did not confirm whether there was anything more with Rafalala and maintained the opinion that he met with her to promote the new film. Unfortunately, the taste remained and his then-partner Julia “Maffashion” Kuczyńska decided to end her relationship with him. Fabijański announced that Rafalala would be sued and released further statements in which he assured that he would only comment on “content related to my professional life – film, music and painting” in social media. However, as you can see, this does not apply to interviews, in which he still willingly speaks on ideological topics, without bringing anything good.