ABOVE: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Screenshot via BBC World News)
Hungary’s National Assembly approved legislation Tuesday that prohibits sharing with anyone under the age of 18 any material that portrays or describes homosexuality or gender identity linking it to another legislative measure by amendment that purports to protect minors against pedophilia.
Fidesz, the conservative ruling party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, introduced the legislation and approved the bill in a 157-1 vote. One independent lawmaker voted against it. All other opposition parties boycotted the voting session in protest the Associated Press reported.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had both denounced the measure, saying it was wrong to conflate LGBTQ people with pedophilia.
“These proposals, which have dark echoes of Russia’s anti-gay ‘propaganda law,’ will further stigmatize LGBTI people, exposing them to greater discrimination in what is already a hostile environment,” David Vig, director of Hungary’s branch of Amnesty International told a massive crowd that assembled yesterday in front of the Parliamentarian building in Central Budapest.
“We have a lot to do before tomorrow’s vote: We have to tell, we have to write to every member of Parliament, why this bill is anti-child, anti-family and anti-human,” he added.
Lydia Gall, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said equating sexual and gender diversity with pedophilia hurt the dignity of LGBT people and risked putting them in danger.
Gall called the legislation “a cynical, distasteful and deliberate attempt by the Orban government to trample the rights of LGBT people and essentially make them invisible in Hungarian society.”
