Government official: Hungary's child protection law not aimed against LGBTQ people
Fidesz MEP: EP poised to adopt ‘yet another LGBTQ diktat’
In a video posted on Facebook, Balazs Hidveghi noted the EP plenary session was about to start, and “the leftist majority is preparing to accept resolutions on topics that are no business of Brussels.”
A proposal “demands” that the “rights of trans parents be respected, whatever that means,” Hidveghi said.
Another would bar member states from referring to their own constitutions on issues pertaining to family and marriage, but “we would have to accept the latest folly from Brussels”.
He said the EP was threatening member states that were unwilling to “submit wordlessly” to “this ideological rampage” with the withholding of funding.
“Hungary is a reliable and predictable partner in European cooperation when it is based on mutual respect. We accept others’ opinions on their own issues but won’t allow Brussels or the European Parliament to instruct us on issues that are solely our business,” Hidveghi said.
Hidveghi said in a statement after MEPs approved the resolution that the EP’s “leftist majority is continuing its ideological rampage and interfering in issues it has nothing to do with”.
Member states cannot even refer to their own constitutions when the issue of family or marriage is being discussed but are “required to accept the latest madness from Brussels”.
“We are now at the point that the European Parliament wants to decide for us what we should consider a family and marriage, how we should raise our children and what we should teach them in school,” Hidveghi said. The MEP said Hungary would not allow Brussels and the EP to “dictate to us on issues that are solely our business”.
Government official: Hungary’s child protection law not aimed against LGBTQ people
Soltesz took part in a panel discussion with Polish Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek at a conference on Poland’s and Hungary’s family policies.
Soltesz said those who were “attacking” Hungary’s child protection law in Brussels “either can’t read, misinterpret the law or are deliberately lying”.
The state secretary said children were vulnerable to media content and “the activities of certain civil groups”. That is why in today’s complicated world “it is not just parents, but also governments that bear a great deal of responsibility for them,” he added.
Hungary’s law, Soltesz emphasised, prohibits gender reassignment under the age of 18 and bans “propaganda” promoting gender change to children. It also makes it illegal to target youth under the age of 18 with any pornographic content, he noted.
Soltesz said the law was “not even close to being about” adult members of the LGBTQ community.
Czarnek said neither Hungary’s child protection law nor Poland’s family protection measures which have come under fire from the European Commission were aimed against any specific groups.
Tuesday’s conference was organised by the Warsaw-based Trimarium foundation focusing on central and eastern European politics and society.