The Hungarian parliament passed an amendment on Monday that allows the government to ban public events in the 2SLGBTQ+ community, a decision that legal scholars and critics take the populist government toward authoritarianism.
The amendment requires two-thirds of the vote and is against the parties by 140 and 21 votes.
It was proposed by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by the populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Before the vote – the final step in the amendment – opposition politicians and other protesters tried to block the entrance to Congress parking lots.
Police actually evacuated the protesters, who used a zipper tie to tie themselves together.
The amendment claims that children’s rights to moral, physical and mental development replace the right to life, including the right to peaceful gathering.
Hungary’s controversial “child protection” legislation prohibits homosexuality from being homosexual for minors under the age of 18.
The amendment passed a fast-pass law in Parliament in March, banning public events held by the 2SLGBTQ+ community, including popular pride events in Budapest to attract thousands of people each year.
The law also allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify people participating in prohibited activities (such as Budapest Pride) and fines up to 200,000 Hungarians ($769 CDN).
Dávid Bed, a MP for the opposition momentum party, participated in the attempted lockdown, and said before the vote that Orbán and Fidesz “have been destroying democracy and the rule of law, and over the past two or three months, we have seen the process accelerated.”
He said that as the 2026 election approaches, Orban’s party lags behind a popular new challenger in the opposition in the polls: “They will do everything they can to continue to rule.”
Opposition MPs used the Air Number to destroy the vote and continued to vote after a while. In recent years, the Hungarian government has campaigned for the 2SLGBTQ+ community and argued that its “Child Protection” policy (prohibiting the availability of any material that is homosexual to minors) is to protect children from so-called “wake ideology” and “gender madness.”
Critics say the measures are of no help in protecting children and are used to distract the more serious problems the country faces and mobilize Albann’s right-wing base before the election.
“The whole effort we’re seeing has nothing to do with children’s rights,” said Dánel Döbrentey, a lawyer for the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.
Amendments also eliminate trans identities
The new amendment also states that the constitution recognizes both men and women, an extension of an earlier amendment that prohibits homosexual adoption, indicating that the mother is a woman and the father is a man.
The declaration provides a constitutional basis for denying transgender gender identity while ignoring the existence of bisexual individuals with sexual characteristics that are inconsistent with the concept of male and female binary.
Government spokesman Zoltán Kovács wrote in a statement Monday that the change “is not an attack on individual self-expression, but rather a clarification that legal norms are based on biological reality.”
Attorney Döbrentey said it was a “clear message” for trans and bisexuals: “Absolutely, purely, strictly about humiliating people and excluding them, not only from ethnic communities, but even from human communities.”
Since Orbán unilaterally wrote and approved the amendment, the amendment is the 15th Amendment to the Hungarian Constitution.
Facial recognition can identify demonstrators
HCLU lawyer Ádám Report said that while Hungary has used facial recognition tools to assist police in criminal investigations and search for missing persons since 2015, recent laws banning Pride allow the technology to be used in a wider and problematic way.
This includes monitoring and blocking political protests.
“One of the most fundamental problems is its invasiveness, it’s just the huge scale of the intrusion that happens when you do mass surveillance to the crowd,” Report said.
He added: “In this case, it is more prominent is the impact on freedom of assembly, especially when people are afraid to go out and show their political or ideological beliefs, the creepy effect that arises from fear of persecution.”
Suspension of citizenship
The amendment passed on Monday also allows Hungarians to hold dual citizenship in non-EEA countries, suspending their citizenship for up to 10 years if they are deemed to be a threat to public order, public safety or national security.
Hungary has taken measures in recent months to protect its national sovereignty from foreign sovereignty to influence its politics, even the government of topplepple Orbán.
The leader, who calls himself a “freedom” leader, has accelerated his long-term efforts to combat critics, such as media and groups dedicated to civil rights and anti-corruption, which he said has undermined Hungary’s sovereignty by obtaining financial aid from international donors.
In a conspiracy theories-filled speech in March, Orban compared those working for insects with those working for insects and promised to “eliminate the entire shadow army of “foreign-funded” politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-newcomers and political activists.”
