LGBT Community Loses Ally in Polish Air Crash

 The plane crash that killed the President of Poland over the weekend claimed the life of an ally of the LGBT community.  And it wasn't the President, who repeatedly showed intolerance toward LGBT people, refusing at one point to allow a Gay Pride Parade in Warsaw.

The ally was Jaruga-Nowacka who served as Poland's deputy prime minister between 2004 and 2005 and was a vocal critic of the homophobic policies and pronouncements of the country's late president.
 "We are for democracy," she once told a crowd. "We are for protection of all human rights, not only for some groups who are in the majority in Poland. All citizens have the right to choose their own way of life...I am here to show my respect for the Polish tradition of tolerance."

She regularly spoke at other gay rights rallies where she suffered verbal abuse from extremist nationalists and Christian groups.

(Thanks to Pink News for information in this post.)