Controversial LGBT policies in Hungary remain
UNITED NATIONS — The right-wing populist government in Hungary is attracting conservative thinkers from the United States who admire its approaches to migration, LGBT issues and national sovereignty — all matters that have put the country at odds with its European partners, who see not a conservative haven but a worrying erosion of democratic institutions on multiple fronts.
Hungary’s top diplomat has a few things to say about that.
In an interview Thursday with The Associated
Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not cede ground on policies that have caused the European Union to impose financial penalties and start legal proceedings against it over violations of the bloc’s values.
“We do not compromise on these issues because we are a sovereign country, a sovereign nation. And no one, not even the European Commission, should blackmail us regarding these policies,” Szijjarto said.
Topping the list of contentious government policies: a controversial Hungarian law that the EU says violates the fundamental rights of LGBT people. That led the EU’s executive commission to delay billions in economic recovery funds earmarked for Hungary — a move Szijjarto called “a purely political decision” and “blackmail.” The law, he says, is meant to protect children from pedophiles and “homosexual propaganda.”
“We will not make make compromises about the future of our children,” Szijjarto told the AP.
The law, passed in June, makes it illegal to promote or portray sex reassignment or homosexuality to minors under 18 in media content. It also contains provisions that provide harsher penalties for pedophilia. Critics say it conflates pedophilia with homosexuality and stigmatizes sexual minorities.
The measures were rejected emphatically by most European leaders. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte suggested Hungary’s right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, should pull his country out of the EU if he is unwilling to abide by its collective principles.
The conflict is only the latest in a protracted fight with the bloc over what it sees as a sustained assault on democratic standards in Hungary — alleged corruption, a consolidation of the media and increasing political control over state institutions and the judiciary.
Last year, the EU adopted a regulation that links the payment of funds to its member states’ compliance with rule-oflaw standards — a measure fiercely opposed by Hungary’s government, which argued it was a means to punish countries that break with the liberal consensus of Western Europe’s countries.
In addition to firm opposition to immigration, Hungary’s government emphasizes traditional family values and resistance to the widening acceptance of sexual minorities in Western countries.