Hungarian President vetoes Orban's LGBT law
Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a close ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. However, the latter fact did not withold her from vetoeing Orban's law. Photo AFP, Attila Kisbenedek
Central Europe
Hungarian President Katalin Novak resists a new law from the government in its battle against the LGBT movement. Her veto is an unexpected protest against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Novak urges the Hungarian Parliament to delete a paragraph in the so-called "whistle-blower" law that makes it legal to report same-sex couples anonymously to the authorities. That is reported by Politico. The Hungarian parliament approved the law earlier this month. It was meant to transpose an EU law that protected whistle-blowers. However, it also included a paragraph that enabled people to "report on those who challenge the constitutionally recognised role of marriage and the family" and "those who contest children's rights to an identity appropriate to their sex at birth."
According to Novak, this paragraph does not "strengthen, but rather weakens the protection of fundamental values."
Unclear
The President also complains that the content of the law is too unclear. She says that it does not clearly define what can be reported and what the legal consequences of the reports would be, Szabad Europa writes.
"In this form, the chapter is not really suitable for protecting the values of the Fundamental Law and thus does not serve their fulfilment either. Indeed, this chapter not only does not strengthen the protection of fundamental values but weakens it", European Conservative cites the President.
For now, the Hungarian Parliament has put the whistleblower law on hold, Die Tagespost writes.
The legislators can overrule Novak's veto, Bloomberg writes.
Pity
It is not the first time Orban's laws against the LGBT ideology have caused controversy. Last Wednesday, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel criticised Orban's earlier introduced Child Protection Law. That law makes it illegal to promote homosexuality or gender change to minors or confront them with porn.
"The most difficult for a homosexual is to accept himself, (…) we don't demand pity, we don't demand solidarity, we don't demand compassion. We only demand respect," Bettel said, as reported by Hungary Today.
Hungarian MEP Tamás Deutsch requested the Prime Minister in response to "not classify the Hungarian Child Protection Act as a homophobic law, because it is about one thing: how to protect the inalienable right of parents to raise their own children."
New era
On Sunday, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said that a right-wing majority in the European Parliament could start a new era in the next term. That is reported by Hungary Today based on an interview in the Italian daily Libero. "With a new Commission, in which bureaucracy and NGOs will no longer be able to prevail over the democratic process. And the EU's line will be dictated by the leaders of the member states, not a European administration pursuing its own political agenda."
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