Anti-Gender Preaching on IKEA Intranet: Catholic Church as a Besieged Fortress (2019–2021)

The case of anti-gay preaching on IKEA intranet in 2019 in Poland became a stimulus to manifest the Catholic Church approach to LGBT. This chapter includes a critical analysis of the discourses triggered by the anti-gender preaching case, especially related to a specific statement by the Church. The analysis employs Elias and Scotson’s sociological model of the established–outsider relations to find that the institutional Church in Poland—despite its pivotal role in Polish history and continuous influence on Polish society—expresses its position regarding gender issues by employing the figure of a “besieged fortress.” The chapter analyses the Church position on LGBT rights as an attempt to strengthen—or at least keep—its established position through discursive building of the Church image as an outsider in modern Polish society.