The bill has been pushed by the conservative Life and Family Foundation, which recently lobbied successfully for a restriction on abortion rights. It was introduced as a citizen’s legislative initiative, which can be submitted to the Polish parliament if it receives signatures from at least 100,000 citizens. Activists have confirmed that over 400 Catholic churches across the country helped to collect signatures in support of the bill among their members. If successful, it will also put an end to other LGBT+ events. The parliamentary debate on the bill on 29 October rapidly turned heated. Krzysztof Kasprzak, one of the initiators, compared the LGBT+ community to Nazis, and accused it of seeking “to overthrow the natural order and introduce terror.” Włodzimierz Czarzasty, a left-wing deputy speaker of parliament, called it the “most disgusting speech” he had heard in his time as a lawmaker. The bill has been sent to Poland’s interior affairs commission, led by a member of the pro-LGBT+ Lewica alliance, Wiesław Szczepański, for further consideration. A petition asking Szczepański to kill the bill has amassed almost 20,000 signatures at the time of writing. “The ‘Stop LGBT’ bill is another vicious attack on the rights and lives of Polish LGBT+ people. As the chairman of the interior affairs commission you have the power to stop this bill and make sure it never comes into effect,” it reads. “Please stand in solidarity with the Polish LGBT+ community and kill this bill.”