Polish court acquits activists who put LGBT rainbow on Catholic icon

Polish LGBT rights activists gather outside a court which acquitted three women who faced trial on accusations of desecration, in Plock, Poland, Tuesday March 2, 2021. A Polish court has acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration for adding the LGBT rainbow to images of a revered Roman Catholic icon. In posters that they put up in protest in their city of Plock, the activists used the rainbow in place of halos on a revered image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

A Polish court has acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration and offending religious feelings for producing and distributing images of a revered Roman Catholic icon altered to include the LGBT rainbow.

The posters, which they distributed in the city of Plock in 2019, used rainbows as halos in an image of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Their aim was to protest against what they considered the hostility of Poland’s influential Catholic Church towards LGBT people.