Thousands of people gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday to mourn the death of President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash Saturday. The plane, a government Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft, was also carrying Kaczynki’s wife and many of the country’s top military and state officials.

The group was traveling to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviets during World War II.

The former mayor of Warsaw who was due to stand for reelection as president this year, Kaczynski was one of the most antigay public officials in all of Europe. Towleroad’s Andy Towle has a thorough report of the former president's frequent campaigns against gay people, including his decision to broadcast on Polish TV the wedding video of an American couple to protest the Treaty of Lisbon, a European Union charter that he believed would bring marriage equality to Poland.