Hungarian Parliament voted the discriminative “homophobic law”

On the last day of the Hungarian Parliament’s Spring session, representatives have voted to accept four bills. One of them seriously discriminates against LGBTQ communities.

Hungary has been the scene of several rather hostile discussions in the past months, mainly concerning two issues. One of them is the building of a brand new campus in Budapest for China’s Fudan University. Massive demonstrations were held against the investment, that according to the Hungarian opposition and many Hungarians, would further increase the influence of China over Hungary. Budapest’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony, even came up with a plan to

rename streets around the future university as a protest against the Far-Eastern country.

When it comes to fundamental human rights, however,

the acceptance of the law package that would technically put homosexuals and paedophiles on the same level in front of the law is a more serious issue.

Yesterday,

ten thousands of Hungarians, human rights organisations and the Advertisement Association of the country protested in front of the Parliament against the homophobic law,

in vain, as we know now.  

We can all agree that paedophiles and sexual offenders need to be sentenced and punished for their crimes on a reasonable level. However, this decision is more than an anti-paedophile package of bills.

The new law will regulate gender reassignment and the display of homosexuality, and as a result, it confuses paedophilia with sexual and gender identity.

The new bill will practically silence biological processes together with mental and physical differences on the basis of “protecting our children”. Advertisements containing these elements would be banned for youngsters under the age of 18, writes hvg.hu. 

Instead of raising awareness, compassion and acceptance in our children, the absolute opposite will happen. They will grow up not only thinking that someone whose sexual preference differs from their own is something not normal, but they will directly discriminate and hate those who feel they love differently in order to have a healthy and full life.

Furthermore, as a side effect of the bill package, the display of homosexuality in the media, let it be a series, a movie, a TV programme or a simple advertisement, will be greatly limited. As hvg.hu quoted the official announcement of the TV channel RTL Klub Hungary, the decision results in the reconsideration of many movies in terms of the age-based rating system. In practice, this means that

movies such as Bridget Jones’s Diaries, Billy Elliot or even some scenes of the most popular sci-fi series for teenagers of all time, Harry Potter will have to move a category and become PG: parental guidance suggested.

As a consequence, these mentioned pieces can only be aired late in the evening or at night.

“Those people whose sexual identity differs from the majority will only be able to be seen on screen with such conditions and at such a late time slot, as only characters of horror movies were presented before.” – said RTL KLUB Hungary.

Source: hvg.hu, RTL Klub