San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
EUROPEAN UNION MOVES TO BOOST LGBTQ RIGHTS IN MEMBER NATIONS
EU tries to counter ANTI-LGBTQ wave in Hungary and Poland
The European Union on Thursday unveiled policies intended to strengthen the rights of LGBTQ people, proposals that appear aimed particularly at rightwing governments in Hungary and Poland that have promoted discrimination.
The moves, drawn up by the European Commission, executive arm of the European Union, would classify hate crime, including homophobic speech, on a list of “EU crimes” that also contains offenses such as drug trafficking and money laundering, giving the bloc more powers to crack down on member nations. The proposal would also protect same-sex families in all 27 of the bloc’s members and promises more funding for organizations promoting equality.
The plan comes as the governing Law and Justice party in Poland faces the biggest protests in the country since the fall of communism in 1989. The huge demonstrations, which began as a defense of women’s rights after a top court’s decision last month to ban nearly all abortions, have grown to include calls for the protection of LGBTQ rights.
In Hungary, the government has pushed for laws targeting the LBGTQ community, including a bill that ties an individual’s gender to their sex and chromosomes at birth, restricting later modifications on official documents.
Announcing the European proposals Thursday, Vera Jourova, the bloc’s commissioner for values and transparency, said, “Everyone should feel free to be who they are — without fear or persecution.
“This is what Europe is about, and this is what we stand for,” she added.
The commission’s intentions are hobbled somewhat because its recommendations are not binding on member countries. Any new legislation would need to be approved by the European Parliament and national governments before much pressure can be applied on nations that do not comply.
Hungary and Poland have been at loggerheads with the European Commission over an array of issues, mostly centering around abuses to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the rights of minorities. Hungarian and Polish authorities have described those principles of governance as “foreign” ideology, but most other European countries and institutions consider them fundamental to the bloc’s beliefs.
During the Polish election campaign this year, President Andrzej Duda, who was running for a second term, called human rights for LGBTQ people an “ideology” more dangerous than communism. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chair of the governing Law and Justice party and the country’s de facto leader, called homosexuality a “threat to Polish identity, to our nation, to its existence and thus to the Polish state.”
The messages were amplified by state television and by the Catholic Church, which plays a prominent role in Polish society, and Duda won re-election by a narrow margin. According to a 2020 survey by ILGA, an international gay rights organization, Poland now ranks as the most homophobic country in the EU.
Activists say that violence against the gay community in Poland has surged. “We are talking about physical violence, beatings, insults, but also destruction of offices of activists,” said Mirka Makuchowska from the Campaign Against Homophobia, an advocacy group.
In Hungary, as the health care system and the economy buckle under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has proposed a set of bills reflecting its war on gender identity.
On Tuesday, after the Hungarian Parliament extended the use of emergency executive powers to combat the virus for 90 days, the Orban government submitted a bill to amend the constitution to establish marriage as an institution exclusively between a man and a woman. Additional provisions include protections of the right to raise children in a Christian culture.
Another bill introduced Tuesday would allow only married couples to adopt children, with exemptions granted only by the government’s minister for family policy.
Hungarian LGBTQ groups have criticized the sudden legislative push. Hatter Tarsasag, an advocacy group, said that the new rules would fuel discrimination.
“We’ve had a conservative government for 10 years now, and they have been systemically undermining the rights of LGBTQI people,” said a representative of the group, Tamas Dombos, using an alternative abbreviation that includes people who are intersex. “In the past year and a half, they have become more vocal about their opposition to LGBTQI rights and increasingly against trans people.”