Hungary Now Allows Neighbors to Report on LGBTQ Families
Hungary has passed yet another anti-LGBTQ law encouraging people to anonymously report same-sex couples raising children to authorities.
Hungarian lawmakers passed a bill last week allowing citizens to anonymously inform on same-sex couples raising children to state authorities.
The law permits people to report on those who contest the “constitutionally recognized role of marriage and the family” as well as those who contest children’s rights “to an identity appropriate to their sex at birth.”
That means that same-sex couples who are jointly raising children, transgender or nonbinary youth, and any parents who affirm their child’s gender identity are likely to be targeted by the law.
Hungary’s constitution already defines marriage as a relationship “between one man and one woman.”
It specifies that “the mother is a woman, the father a man.” Still, the bill reiterates that by encouraging citizens to inform on their neighbors if they don’t conform to a traditional family structure, according to Bloomberg News.
The legislation also includes a host of provisions to ensure authorities investigate any complaints they receive, from alleged workplace misconduct to corruption — and now, apparently, any discomfort with LGBTQ identity or visibility.
Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, of the Christian Democratic People’s Party, which is allied with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, proposed the bill in February.
Having been approved in parliament, the legislation now heads to Orbán, who is expected to sign it into law.
What remains to be seen is whether individual Hungarians will seek to have the law enforced against their neighbors.
According to 2021 polling data from Ipsos, about 66% of Hungarians support allowing same-sex couples to marry. But according to the 2017-2020 World Values Survey, they are divided when it comes to ensuring other LGBTQ rights, with 40% of respondents saying same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.
As such, there is potentially fertile ground for those seeking to exploit the law in order force their moral or religious views on others.
As with many of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ laws — passed under Orbán’s government — supporters claim the legislation is necessary to ensure the stability of families and to protect children from being unduly influenced by LGBTQ people, for fear that some youth may one day identify as LGBTQ themselves.
In recent years, the government has successfully pushed for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as limited to heterosexual cisgender people, limited the ability of same-sex couples to adopt, and revoked legal recognition of transgender individuals.
Last year, in conjunction with the country’s parliamentary elections, the Fidesz-led government held a referendum on four questions dealing with LGBTQ content in sex education and in media portrayals.
While an overwhelming majority of voters sided with the government in opposing allowing children to access to be exposed to such content, the referendum failed to reach the 50% threshold of votes cast needed to be considered valid.
That referendum came on the heels of a 2021 law passed by Fidesz and its allies in parliament attaching legislation to ban public discussions or depictions of homosexuality or gender transition to an anti-pedophilia bill to ensure its passage.
The “anti-propaganda” law bans acknowledgment of LGBTQ identity, or displays of LGBTQ visibility, in schools, in news or educational reports, in advertising, and in TV or radio entertainment programming, and imposes fines for violators.
Supporters of the law have argued that media depictions of LGBTQ people — even if facially neutral, let alone positive portrayals — can harm the “physical, mental, and moral development” of youth exposed to such content.
Last year, the European Commission sued Hungary over the “anti-propaganda” law, claiming the law discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Fifteen European Union member states, including France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Finland, signed onto the lawsuit, alleging that the Hungarian law violates “several EU human rights laws and values,” including prohibitions on anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Some opponents of the law, such as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have even suggested that Hungary should leave the EU if they don’t wish to abide by human rights laws protecting LGBTQ individuals.
Even countries that are not a party to the lawsuit have condemned the law and expressed support for taking action against Hungary, with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský refuting the core beliefs underlying the anti-propaganda law — namely, that LGBTQ people pose a threat to children and are seeking to “indoctrinate” them.
“Children are not threatened by seeing such characters on TV or in books. They are endangered by the artificial stirring up of hatred or the concealment of information,” Lipavský said, according to Euractiv.
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