Hungary’s parliament passed an amendment to the constitution that allows the government to ban public events by LGBTQ communities, a decision that legal scholars and critics call another step toward authoritarianism by the populist government. Ahead of the vote, opposition politicians and other protesters attempted to blockade the entrance to a parliament parking garage. Police physically removed demonstrators, who had used zip ties to bind themselves together.
The amendment declares that children’s rights to moral, physical and spiritual development supersede any right other than the right to life, including that to peacefully assemble. Hungary’s infamous “child protection” legislation prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors aged under 18. The new amendment codifies a law fast-tracked through parliament that bans public events held by LGBTQ communities, including the popular Pride event in Budapest that draws thousands annually.
Dávid Bedő, a lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party who participated in the attempted blockade, said before the vote that Orbán and Fidesz for the past 15 years “have been dismantling democracy and the rule of law, and in the past two or three months, we see that this process has been sped up.” He said as elections approach in 2026 and Orbán’s party lags in the polls behind a popular new challenger from the opposition, “they will do everything in their power to stay in power.”
Hungary’s government has campaigned against LGBTQ communities in recent years, and argues its “child protection” policies, which forbid the availability to minors of any material that mentions homosexuality, are needed to protect children from what it calls “woke ideology” and “gender madness.” Critics say the measures do little to protect children and are being used to distract from more serious problems facing the country and mobilize Orbán’s right-wing base ahead of elections.
“This whole endeavor which we see launched by the government, it has nothing to do with children’s rights,” said Dánel Döbrentey, a lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, calling it “pure propaganda.”
The amendment also provides a constitutional basis for denying the gender identities of transgender people, as well as ignoring the existence of intersex individuals who are born with sexual characteristics that do not align with binary conceptions of male and female. Döbrentey said it was “a clear message” for transgender and intersex people: “It is definitely and purely and strictly about humiliating people and excluding them, not just from the national community, but even from the community of human beings.”
Orbán has also accelerated his longstanding efforts to crack down on critics such as media outlets and groups devoted to civil rights and anti-corruption, which he says have undermined Hungary’s sovereignty by receiving financial assistance from international donors. In a speech laden with conspiracy theories in March, Orbán compared people who work for such groups to insects, and pledged to “eliminate the entire shadow army” of foreign-funded “politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists.”
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