BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
Hungary’s parliament voted last Tuesday to repeal the 2021 Child Protection Law that banned the portrayal or promotion of homosexuality and transgender identities in schools and media. Within minutes, the EU announced it was releasing €4.2 billion (approximately $4.6 billion) in funds frozen over rule-of-law violations, a connection Budapest had been counting on.
From political weapon to political liability
Orbán’s government pushed the 2021 law as a child protection measure, framing gay and transgender people as a threat to public morals, and for years it worked. Then his government pardoned the deputy head of a children’s home convicted of covering up his boss’s child sexual abuse crimes, and what had been a political asset became the defining scandal of his final term.
Magyar ran his campaign on protecting children in state care and largely sidestepped the LGBTQ rights issue; his party needed conservative votes, and he was not going to risk alienating them.
Five years of legislation, unwound in one vote
Tuesday’s package went beyond the 2021 law, touching Fidesz-era changes to education policy and assembly rights. Civil rights group Háttér Society, which had been fighting the child protection law for five years, said most of the problems it had flagged in the draft had been fixed.
“We are very happy that this got adopted,” said Tamás Dombos of Háttér Society. “We’ve been fighting this so-called child protection law for five years.”
The repeal also cleared Hungary’s path to rejoin Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe, two major EU programs suspended during the Orbán years over rule-of-law violations. Tisza holds the same two-thirds parliamentary majority Orbán’s party once had, which meant the package passed without needing to negotiate.
Beyond the repeal
Háttér Society welcomed the vote, though the group was clear about how much remains unaddressed. It still wants full recognition of same-sex marriage, adoption rights for same-sex couples, and the right of transgender people to change their names on official documents, none of which are in the new legislation.
Magyar has been careful in how he frames the issue. “I’m very cautious,” he told Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat. “As prime minister, it’s my duty to represent all Hungarians, and we have sensitive issues, such as the situation of sexual minorities.”
“We are still knocking on a closed door,” Dombos said, “but at least they are listening on the other side.” For a community that spent years being actively targeted, that is a real shift, even if full equality is still a long way off.
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