“Save our children!” This exhortation appeared on the bumpers of dusty North American pick-up trucks, on the darker corners of the Internet and occasionally on Facebook newsfeeds, signaling that many of us have acquaintances, friends and contacts who have bought into the worst and the most irrational of conspiracy theories. We’re talking about the likes of “Pizza Gate.” The European Union now has a national government led by a QAnon party, after Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz used its parliamentary might to ram through legislation that cynically conflates homosexuality with pedophilia. In Tuesday’s vote, 157 MPs voted in support of the legislation , one voted against and all opposition parties except Jobbik boycotted the vote. Modelled explicitly off of homophobic legislation from Russia, the sole reason for this bill is that with less than a year to go until the next national elections, Mr. Orbán once again needs to manufacture a shadowy common enemy. George Soros, migrants, Jews and “communists” are passé. Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community is now public enemy number one. It has become illegal for adults to speak to Hungarian youth under the age of 18 about sexual identity as it relates to orientation.
Zsolt Szekeres, a lawyer with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, put the far-reaching implications into perspective when he spoke with journalists of the last remaining opposition print daily, Népszava. Let’s say there was an incident of hate directed at a gay student in a Hungarian high school. A student discloses that he is gay and gets spat on or otherwise bullied. A teacher finds out and decides to speak with the students in class, using it as a teaching moment of sorts. Under the new legislation, that teacher could be charged and convicted of “propagating homosexuality.” As well, only government-sanctioned organizations will be permitted to be involved in sex education progammes. Advertising depicting gay couples or transgendered people could be deemed illegal as well.
Youth who are struggling with their sexual identity and facing homophobia will no longer be able to turn to adults for support or guidance, and the consequences of this will at times be tragic. This past May, a 13 year old boy committed suicide — a death that could have been prevented had there been support in place. István Jónás, a talented musician from a loving family, returned home from school and then told his mother that he was going for a walk. He never returned home. He jumped from a bridge into a canal.
“He was my only son and I loved him more than life itself. I am consumed by pain, especially that due to being busy with so much work, I did not pay enough attention to his inner wellbeing. He couldn’t grapple with the fact that he was different and that he was attracted to boys,” said the father, who was the one to recover his child’s body from the water. Hungarians in the community helped the family, living in very modest means, with their funeral and burial expenses.
Even with the death of a teenage boy struggling with his sexual orientation so fresh on the mind, the Orbán government proceeded with its self-serving, cynical legislation. Fidesz and its moralizing coalition partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party are frauds. Worse still, they represent the epitome of moral turpitude, while wrapping themselves in Christian rhetoric. The opposition has taken to calling the new legislation the “Frankenstein law,” in light of how it conflates two unrelated things.
The sharpest and most damning critique came from Gergely Arató of the Democratic Coalition. “If Viktor Orbán doesn’t know the difference between being gay and being a pedophile, he should ask József Szájer or Gábor Kaleta,” said Mr. Arató after the vote. József Szájer is the disgraced Fidesz MEP who was arrested by police in Brussels for breaking Covid-19 public health restrictions. He was caught fleeing from a gay sex party at a time when gatherings were prohibited. Mr. Szájer’s sexual activities were well-known in Fidesz for many years, and this is seen as one reason why he was sent away to Brussels — out of sight, out of mind. At the same time, Mr. Szájer had no moral qualms representing his government’s anti-gay policies. Gábor Kaleta on the other hand was the former Hungarian ambassador to Peru, appointed by the current government, who stored 19,000 pornographic images depicting children on his computer. Mr. Kaleta pleaded guilty in 2020 and was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence and a fine of 540,000 forints (approx. $2,000).
Thousands have demonstrated in Budapest against the outrageous legislation, among them Socialist politician Ildikó Lendvai, who also once served as the president of the Hungarian Socialist Party. She is now a regular columnist with Népszava and also participated at Monday’s protest, which brought out an estimated 10,000 people. The Fidesz tabloid Pesti Srácok tried, unsuccessfully, to instill fear in the protesters by calling on the police and Fidesz supporters to create lists and photographs of all participants and by default consider them to be “potential pedophiles.” Ms. Ledvai wrote about the absurd logic within Fidesz circles that merely hearing about homosexuality and issues of gender will somehow make otherwise heterosexual people homosexual. She referred to a clever sign she saw at the protest which read: “I’ve watched action films about gangsters, yet I never became a member of Fidesz.”
Protest in Budapest against Fidesz’s homophobic law. Photo: MTI.
The outrageously cynical character of the Orbán regime’s current scapegoating of gay Hungarians and the decision to criminalize outreach to youth struggling with their sexual orientation and with homophobia has all but the most vapid Fidesz supporters scandalized. On the day that parliament passed the Frankenstein bill, Szemlélek, the centre-right blog launched by lay Catholics, published a cover piece entitled “Why are church leaders hiding when it comes to the protection of minors?” The author is István Gégény, a practicing Roman Catholic and a catechist in the Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest. The Archdiocese recently appointed a safe environment coordinator, László Gájer. Three months ago, Mr. Gégény wrote to him asking for information on concrete measures and protocols around the protection of minors in the Catholic Church. Mr. Gájer requested time to respond, but has yet to do so, even 12 weeks later. There is rumbling within Catholic circles about the fact that the Church’s purported zero tolerance policy when it comes to predatory behaviour against minors may be true in theory, but less so in practice. Once stories of clergy abuse within the Catholic Church of Hungary are uncovered, including both historic and contemporary cases, the current government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will bear significant responsibility for having consented to protecting the perpetrators, while engaging in the most crass partisan politics on the matter of sexual orientation and freedom.
Orban has saved Hungary from the Marxist garbage which has penetrated every regime in Western Europe and North America. Be thankful for him. Don’t demonize the man.
Dear Mr. Christopher Adam: All majority governments pass or ram through legislation. It happens in Canada, the US and all democrat or republican governments. That is the reason for wanting a majority government. If we look at the legislation rammed through by the Trudeau government, you would find that at least 60% of the people do not support most.
One wonders how you can write that Mr. Orban needs to manufacture enemies and you have mentioned the Jews. Yes, Soros is the enemy of Hungary but not because of his religion. He is an enemy because he wants to force globalists and socialism on the people. It has been proven, that Jewish people are the safest in Hungary amongst all EU countries. Hungary is a great, probably the only true friend of Israel among the EU countries. Anti Semitism, like the one propagated by Omar would not be tolerated by any political party in Hungary.
I could go on and on, the bottom line is, are you telling falsehoods on purpose , your education is lacking, you hate the country and its people or Marxism is your God.
An Economist article writes “Immigration contribution to French Budget is increasingly negative. There was also beheading there. Generals wrote a letter to Macron to stop illegal immigration
Not only Hungary but the rest of V4, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and now Denmark and Greece passed laws to keep out aliens.
Illegal immigration created no go zones in Sweden, there are towns in the US where you need to speak Spanish to survive, there was also terrorist attacks, rise in murder, rape of women and child molestation. In Germany, only 57% of migrants employed. Why would Hungary or any other country support illegal migration?
There is freedom of press however, there is no market for socialist rhetoric. There is no reason for the government to advertise in media that has small following.
The people of Hungary voted for Mr. Orban, knowing his conservatives policies. Members of the LGBT community are not ostracize, however, not supported. There should never be a situation when LGBT members are persecuted. Lately, information appeared that children who feel that they are trans gender or their sex should be different, often changed their mind in later life. Many young men and woman who had their sex changed, committed suicide in later life. The main reason for this sad ending is that the brain does not fully develop until middle or late twenties.
Dear Mr. Adam, try not to let your dislike for conservative government be so apparent.
Mr Orban is a poor man trying to make more money and power using as an excuse the attacks on George Soros, lgtb community, immigration, globalism…. Well if you only want the money but not the European Liberal freedom you could have stayed out of the EU…… By the way Victor Orban only cares about himself not the Hungarian people…
He was the only European political leader to enforce the EU immigration policy properly when thousands of ‘Syrians’ and others were rampaging through Hungary on their way to Germany , instead of ,as required by EU law …to apply for asylum in the FIRST EU country.
The wall was needed ,as was an independent Hungarian attitude. I am not fond of him but he has been given much public support because of his commonsense actions to protect the security and independent integrity of Hungary.
You waffle on about political hypocrisy yet have no problem slandering any political enemie because they are gay! Who funds you? The UK?
Hungary still has its OWN currency!
On the other hand, with the very aggressive push of gender identity propaganda in Western society, now we have 1/6 of gen Z generation identifying as something else in the Alphabet aside from heterosexuals and that number is expected to continue rising.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/02/24/gen-z-lgbt/
Celebrities coming out as something else but straight are a daily occurrence now. We should remind ourselves that at one point, long ago in the city-state of Athens, the ideal love & romance was socially constructed to be between two males, ideally a bearded one and a non-bearded one. In other words, a bunch of influential homosexuals constructed social ideals that led to older men getting to have their way with all the young boys in their society. I find it hard to believe that 1/6 of all humans have a natural biological inclination to be non-heterosexual. I think at this point we reached a level of idealization of homosexuality that not declaring themselves as one such deviated individual carries the risk of being considered lame, a prude or worse. And we were told long ago that teaching our kids at a very young age about homosexuality and all that does not carry the risk of turning what should be straight people into something else. Perhaps it is not entirely harmless? And how far will it go from here? Will it reach a point where all young people will engage in homosexual activities just because of social pressures? Young Athenian boys did, allowing themselves to be effectively abused (by our social standards) by what was likely a small minority of men in a society that took advantage. So really, why is Hungary wrong? Why is there only one answer to this? Is it because in this society no one dares to question it anymore? Then we are headed exactly in the direction that was not long ago considered as absurd and dismissed as such!
Thank you for this factual, and well argues report on the Orbán government’s latest abuse of the human and civil rights of Hungary’s minorities. This kleptocratic autocracy, that forcefully silences its victims, and willfully misinforms the majority has no business sitting at the table with those who claim to be dedicated to the preservation and promotion of universal human rights. The Orbán regime’s rightful place is on the dustbin of history, along with its lunatic trolls (Joe, Papasha408, and Maria von Theresa) who come here on a regular basis to polute this underpass.
“This kleptocratic autocracy, that forcefully silences its victims”
Your ideological tyranny has its own victims that were silenced. For instance the 1,400 young girls in Rotherham, that were victims of grooming by gangs of Muslim migrants. Authorities did nothing and silenced the girls who came to them for help because they feared being branded as racists by zealots like you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
Also, in the age of cancel culture where anyone daring to voice a view that goes against your ideological tyranny risks job loss and so on, it is the height of hypocrysy for you to talk about silencing by anyone else!