The two sides trade sharp accusations about the bill enacted by Parliament on Tuesday, which bans the ‘promotion or wanton representation’ of pornography, paedophilia, same-sex and transgender life among children under 18.
Hungarian press roundup by budapost.eu
On Magyar Hang online, Dávid Lakner agrees with a historian who sees the ban on ‘gay representation’ for minors as akin to anti-Semitic legislation in Hungary from 1938. In both cases, they assert, the authorities have restricted the rights of a ‘genetically determined’ group. Meanwhile, Lakner hopes that the law will backfire, as according to a fresh IPSOS poll, 59 percent of Hungarians support equal rights for gays.
Magyar Nemzet’s Ottó Gajdics argues, on the other hand, that while adults may well choose the identities and lifestyles they wish, the upbringing of children should be firmly under parental control. Those who cannot accept that, he concludes, may rightly be suspected of ‘political paedophilia’, that is, of intending to use children for political purposes.
On Mandiner, Mátyás Kohán recalls his own personal experience attending a Catholic school in California four years ago, where the pro-Fidesz columnist met intolerance towards his view that homosexuality runs against the textual teaching of the Scriptures. He wouldn’t mind if ‘enlightenment’ in schools was aimed at telling the young that gays exist and must be tolerated, but he does mind the kind of ‘indoctrination’ which transforms immature people into ‘djihadi warriors’, he continues.
Choices about sexual identity, in his view, must be made by people at a mature age. In America, on the other hand, very young children are inculcated with groupthink and intolerance. Banning such ‘indoctrination’ of children, Kohán writes, does not amount to oppressing homosexuals. It is a Christian duty, he concludes, without which ‘we are doomed, just as the leading nation of the free world is falling apart before our eyes’. His article is entitled ‘On the ban on well-poisoning’.
Featured photo illustration by Márton Mónus/MTI