Hungary’s Anti-LGBTI-Law

After four weeks of raising awareness and an unusual amount of media coverage of LGBTI issues, Pride month 2021 is over. But all the declarations of support cannot annihilate the discrimination that the LGBTI community is facing daily – also in Europe. Once again, Hungary’s government made homophobic headlines with a bill counteracting LGBTI rights, and therefore dismissing human rights. The bill that was adopted in the midst of International Pride Month bans the depiction of non-heterosexuals from educational materials, books, movies and any other content accessible to minors.

This law would further deepen the discrimination the LGBTI community is struggling with already. With its claim that the law will protect children from sexual abuse, Viktor Orbán’s party Fidesz compares homosexuality to pedophilia, and therefore reinforces an old narrative that perceives homosexuality as sinful and threatening to society – an inhumane stigmatisation the LGBTI community has been confronted with for decades. In the meantime, other EU leaders expressed their support for the LGBTI rights as well as their condemnation for disrespecting those in an open letter to the EU. And thousands of people demonstrated against the anti-LGBTI law outside the parliament building in Budapest. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel as the awareness of LGBTI issues is growing globally. But when this law will be passed, it will become a symbol for a major setback regarding LGBTI politics: There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, but there is a long way to go.