27-06-2025
Budapest Pride ban at centre of Viktor Orbán's culture war
Adam Kanicsár, a 35-year-old Hungarian LGBTQ+ activist and journalist, says all his friends have "a plan B" to leave Hungary if the current Christian-conservative government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wins the country's parliamentary election next year.
"What we have learnt in Hungary is that there is a new bottom line every day," Mr Kanicsár told RTÉ News from his home in Budapest.
For him, last week's decision by Budapest police to ban tomorrow's annual Pride parade in the city marks a "new low point" for Mr Orbán's Fidesz party, which has governed Hungary since 2010.
Mr Kanicsár plans to attend Pride tomorrow with friends, along with many other thousands of people from Hungary's LGBTQ+ community who intend to defy the ban on the annual parade, celebrating its 30th edition this year.
By banning the parade, Budapest police say they are enforcing an amendment to Hungary's Assembly Act, passed last March by the Hungarian parliament where Fidesz has a two-thirds majority.
It is expected that more than 70 MEPs will attend tomorrow's parade in Budapest in support of Hungary's LGBTQ+ community.
Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner for Equality, and Michael O'Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe will be in attendance.
Leader of the Green Party Roderic O'Gorman TD will also travel to the Hungarian capital for the parade to support its organisers, including the mayor of Budapest Gergely Karácsony, who is a member of the Hungarian Green Party.
"I think it's really important to show solidarity in light of the seriousness of what's happening with the banning of a Pride parade," Mr O'Gorman said.
"We've seen the Hungarian government chip away at the rights of the LGBT+ community over the last number of years and they've used the same kind of playbook that we've seen far-right authoritarian regimes use elsewhere, linking restrictions to the LGBT+ community with child protection" said Mr O'Gorman.
Last month, Ireland was one of 20 EU member states to sign a joint statement accusing Hungary of contravening fundamental EU values by passing laws that target LGBTQ+ people.
A potential ban on Pride was first mentioned by Mr Orbán in late February, during his annual state of the union address, when he said that Pride organisers should "not bother preparing for this year's parade".
The bill, passed by parliament in March and signed into law in April, made it illegal to hold public assemblies that breach Hungary's Child Protection Law from 2021, an act that prohibits the depiction or promotion of homosexuality and gender transition to minors across all forms of content, including films, books and advertisements.
The 2021 law, also dubbed the 'propaganda law', was widely criticised by Hungary's liberal opposition and human rights NGOs in Hungary and across Europe as anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
In order to copper-fasten the Assembly Law amendment, last April, parliament also passed amendments to Hungary's Fundamental Law, the country's constitution, outlining that the rights of a child "take precedence over all other fundamental rights, except the right to life".
That change meant that Hungary's legal definition of children's rights superseded the right to assembly, effectively banning Pride events.
"The 'propaganda law' only limited freedom of speech but now the right of assembly is also affected," said Dr Eszter Polgári, a lawyer at the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
Fidesz advocates for a traditional, conservative family model and though civil union between same-sex couples has been recognised in Hungary since 2009, the current constitution recognises marriage as "the union of one man and one woman".
In 2020, Hungary's parliament voted to limit adoption to married couples, preventing gay couples from adopting children.
That same year, the government introduced legislation that banned legal gender recognition for people wishing to have their gender identity recognised as different from their gender at birth.
It is unclear how Budapest police will approach tomorrow's parade given that organisers and the LGBTQ+ community are determined to hold the parade as usual.
"Most likely the police will announce that this is a prohibited march but it's more problematic for the organisers," said Ms Polgári.
Hungarian police will not have the right to arrest people for attending the parade but they will have the authority to issue fines of between €15 and €500.
Those fines, said Ms Polgári, would be issued for participating in an assembly that is prohibited under the Assembly Act.
"It's not just about the LGBTQ rights and culture, but it's really about freedom of speech, and it's really about our freedom," said Mr Kanicsár.
"If they can ban Pride, and ban people from coming to the street and making their voices heard, then they can ban it for every situation."
The stakes are even higher for the parade organisers, which include Budapest Pride, an NGO that organises the event annually and Budapest city hall, represented by the mayor, Mr Karácsony. They could face up to one year in prison for defying the ban.
Mr Karácsony has insisted that the parade will go ahead, stating that Pride does not require a permit because it is a municipal event.
Speaking yesterday at an International Human Rights Conference at Budapest's Central European University to mark the 30th anniversary of Budapest Pride, Mr Karácsony said tomorrow's parade "has one real source of law, one legal and moral basis, and this is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
Budapest Pride is urging participants not to accept the fine given by police at the first attempt, and advised attendees that fines can be appealed at a later date.
For its part, Hungary's government has signalled that it wants to avoid violent confrontations at the event.
On Wednesday, the country's minister for transport János Lázár told Hungarian independent news outlet 444 that the law "does not have to be enforced at the cost of violence".
Earlier this week, 33 embassies in Budapest, including the Embassy of Ireland, signed a joined statement in support of Budapest Pride and Hungary's LGBTIQ+ community.
In response, Hungarian justice minister Bence Tuzson wrote a letter to EU ambassadors and their staff at embassies in Budapest not to attend the event.
In the letter, seen by AFP, Mr Tuzson wrote that Pride was a "legally banned assembly".
For much of the past decade, Fidesz has clashed with the EU over its opposition to migrant relocation quotas, the independence of the Hungarian judiciary and media freedoms in a country where the media market is dominated by pro-government outlets.
Hungary has also opposed the consensus view in the EU to support Ukraine's bid to join the bloc, using its veto to delay funding packages for Kyiv while maintaining close political and economies ties with Moscow.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video on X, calling on Hungarian authorities to allow Pride to go ahead, much to the ire of Mr Orbán, no stranger to clashes with the EU.
"Dear Madam President, I urge the European Commission to refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs of Member States, where it has no role to play," wrote Mr Orbán in response.
The standoff over Pride comes at a time when Fidesz is facing the toughest challenge yet during its 15 years in government.
A poll by Hungarian pollster Medián last week put the centre-right opposition party Tisza, led by former Fidesz ally Péter Magyar, between 10 and 15 percentage points ahead of Fidesz.
Mr Magyar has so far stayed away from commenting on the Pride ban, perhaps conscious that supporting the LGBTQ+ movement could reduce his chances of gaining the support of more conservative voters ahead of next year's pivotal parliamentary election.
RTÉ News contacted the Hungarian government's international communication office with questions regarding the decision to ban this year's parade.
In response, the office emailed a post on X from earlier this week by Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary's Secretary of State for International Communication, which read:
"This year's @budapestpride is being organized in violation of Hungarian law—despite a binding decision by the Curia, Hungary's supreme court, which banned the march citing child protection concerns."
"As always, we remain committed to protecting Hungarian children from LGBTQ propaganda."
However, there is evidence that the views of a majority of Hungarians towards LGBTQ+ issues are more liberal.
A study conducted out by the Háttér Society in November 2023 found than 72% of Hungarians agree that same-sex couples can be good parents.
It also found that 73% of those polled would allow transgender people to change their gender and name on their official documents.
Whether tomorrow's banned parade becomes a defining moment in Hungarian politics will only become clear in the months ahead.
Its impact may just be limited to liberal Budapest and other cities.
But Fidesz's move to ban Pride has already turned the event into a mass protest about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and that in itself will be hard for the ruling party to shrug off entirely.
"Saturday will be a historic event," said Mr Kanicsár.
"It will be a really big act of democracy."
