Hungarian minister: New law not discriminating against LGBT people
Dutch protest against the Hungarian 'child protection law'. Photo ANP, Robin Utrecht
Central Europe
The Hungarian government has written a letter to the European Commission, which has launched an infringement procedure against Hungarian amendments to its so-called child protection law.
Justice minister Judit Varga argues that the controversial law aims to protect minors. She says that it should not be interpreted as discriminating against LGBT people. Last summer, the law was adopted and led to much unrest all over Europe, Hungary Today writes. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte even hinted at his Hungarian colleague Viktor Orban to leave the European Union because of this “anti-gay law”.
The new law forbids “any portrayal of sexuality as an end in itself, any deviation from the identity corresponding to one’s sex assigned at birth, sex reassignment or promotion of homosexuality” to minors.
In practice, that means that sex education in schools may not contain anything that promotes homosexuality or aims at changing gender. In addition, it is forbidden to target minors with pornographic content.
“Unfair and political”
Varga considers the European infringement procedure “unfair and political.” She points out that the Hungarian constitution calls for a law that declares sex at birth the only legal gender. The constitution proclaims since 2020 that “the mother is a woman, and the father is a man.” Furthermore, she defends the law by saying that the government never said homosexuality would be a problem. According to her, it merely declared that content that demonstrates it could be harmful to children.
Earlier, the new ruling led to much controversy. Dunja Mijatovic, the human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe, responded that the Hungarian government “must stop instrumentalising and weakening the human rights of LGBT people”, as CNE.news reported earlier. Mijatovic called it “deeply regrettable that the new law weaponises LGBT rights as an election issue.” Also, in Hungary itself, thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the new law.
The Hungarian president, Viktor Orban, organises a referendum about the issue this year. If the referendum is successful, it means that Hungarian people express their will for this law, justice minister Varga says.
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