Let The Peo­ple Vote On LGBT Law

Hun­gar­i­an PM Vik­tor Orban announces upcom­ing ref­er­en­dum on LGBT infor­ma­tion law

ROD DREHER

Big news from Hun­gar­i­an PM Vik­tor Orban today. Here’s part of the trans­lat­ed announcement:

The Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment is ini­ti­at­ing a ref­er­en­dum on the issue of child pro­tec­tion, Vik­tor Orbán announced on Wednes­day. Ques­tions will include what par­ents think about intro­duc­ing sex­u­al pro­pa­gan­da to chil­dren in pub­lic edu­ca­tion institutions.

There will also be ques­tions ask­ing how much par­ents sup­port  giv­ing lec­tures in schools  about gen­der reas­sign­ment treat­ments. The Prime Min­is­ter is ask­ing every­one to say no to these issues together.

Brus­sels has attacked Hun­gary in recent weeks for child pro­tec­tion laws, said Vik­tor Orbán. The prime min­is­ter added that the Euro­pean Union is demand­ing an amend­ment to the Edu­ca­tion and Child Pro­tec­tion Act.

[Quote from Orban:] “Brus­sels is now demand­ing an amend­ment to the Edu­ca­tion Act and child pro­tec­tion rules. They regret that it is not pos­si­ble with us, which is already per­ma­nent in West­ern Europe. There, LGBTQ activists vis­it kinder­gartens and schools, they pro­vide sex­u­al edu­ca­tion. Here, too, they want this, which is why the bureau­crats in Brus­sels are threat­en­ing and insti­tut­ing infringe­ment pro­ceed­ings, ie abus­ing their power.”

– said the Prime Min­is­ter. He added that the future of our chil­dren is at stake, so we can­not let go on this issue. When the pres­sure on our coun­try is so strong, only the com­mon will of the peo­ple can pro­tect Hungary.

The ref­er­en­dum ques­tions will be:

1. Do you sup­port hav­ing a sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion ses­sion in a pub­lic edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion with­out parental consent?
2. Do you sup­port the pro­mo­tion of gen­der reas­sign­ment treat­ments for minor children?
3. Do you sup­port the avail­abil­i­ty of gen­der reas­sign­ment treat­ments for minors?
4. Do you sup­port the unre­strict­ed pre­sen­ta­tion of sex­u­al media con­tent to minors that affects their development?
5. Do you sup­port the dis­play of gen­der-sen­si­tive media con­tent to minor children?

This is a bril­liant move. The Hun­gar­i­an oppo­si­tion did not vote on the law, because they saw it as manip­u­la­tive. There was broad agree­ment among all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans that Hungary’s anti-pedophil­ia laws need­ed strength­en­ing. Fidesz, Orban’s par­ty, added to it the LGBT pro­pa­gan­da law ban­ning the things implic­it in those five ques­tions. The lib­er­al oppo­si­tion believed — no doubt cor­rect­ly — that this was a polit­i­cal move to stron­garm them into vot­ing for a bill (the anti-LGBT infor­ma­tion bill) that they oppose, or stand accused of being soft on pedophil­ia. They’re right — it was a brash and manip­u­la­tive polit­i­cal move. Nev­er­the­less, the leg­is­la­tion itself, in my view, was cor­rect and nec­es­sary. I found myself the oth­er day speak­ing to a crit­ic of the leg­is­la­tion, but when I explained to him how far this pro­pa­gan­da has gone in the US, he was vis­i­bly shocked, and admit­ted that he was out of touch, and had no idea that things were that bad in America.

Any­way, now the Orban gov­ern­ment is going to give the entire Hun­gar­i­an peo­ple the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote on this. The Hun­gar­i­an observ­er who first brought this to my atten­tion says it is incon­ceiv­able that majori­ties will not deliv­er a resound­ing NO to all the ref­er­en­dum ques­tions. If that hap­pens, it will put the Euro­pean Union lead­ers in oppo­si­tion not just to Orban, but to a major­i­ty of the Hun­gar­i­an nation. The EU’s attack on Hun­gary over this law will be clear­ly seen as an attack not just on Orban and the Fidesz-led gov­ern­ment, but on the entire nation and its values.

Which is cer­tain­ly is!But the ref­er­en­dum will make that explic­it. There is no date set for the ref­er­en­dum. It would be a baller move to make it on the same day as the 2022 elec­tions, to dri­ve vot­er turnout for Fidesz, but my Hun­gar­i­an observ­er friend says she thinks it will be held much sooner.

Is this an attempt by Orban to dis­tract peo­ple from the Pega­sus scan­dal? Sure, prob­a­bly. But what­ev­er his moti­va­tions, the fact is that this is an extreme­ly impor­tant issue involv­ing the fun­da­men­tal moral sense of Hun­gar­i­an soci­ety, and the pro­tec­tion of its chil­dren from this ide­ol­o­gy. If I were Hun­gar­i­an, I wouldn’t care what Vik­tor Orban’s motives were for this move — I would just be grate­ful that he was mak­ing it. All the Cen­tral Euro­pean gov­ern­ments should do the same. Let the peo­ple vote. Quit allow­ing these lib­er­al West­ern cul­tur­al oli­garchs and their leg­isla­tive water-car­ri­ers decide to rewrite the moral law.

We had sim­i­lar ref­er­en­dums in the US on gay mar­riage back in the first decade of this cen­tu­ry. Gay mar­riage was vot­ed down in most, and maybe all, of them. But the Supreme Court over­ruled all of them. At least in Hun­gary, an oli­garchi­cal EU elite won’t be able to inval­i­date the will of the peo­ple. Good for Hungary.

UPDATE:From The Guardian‘s report:

Rights groups said the ref­er­en­dum is like­ly to increase dis­crim­i­na­tion and stig­ma­ti­sa­tion of Hungary’s LGBT com­mu­ni­ty, and make life more dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous for LGBT children.

“Organ­is­ing a ref­er­en­dum to take away fun­da­men­tal rights of a minor­i­ty reminds us of Europe in the 1930s,” said Rémy Bon­ny, a Bel­gian LGBT rights activist, in a state­ment. “This ref­er­en­dum [is] not only putting the LGB­TIQ-com­mu­ni­ty back in the clos­et, it also endan­gers the basic rights of children.”

What “fun­da­men­tal rights of a minor­i­ty”? The ref­er­en­dum does not affect homo­sex­u­als and trans­gen­ders per se; it has to do with minor chil­dren, a cat­e­go­ry that every­body rec­og­nizes is not the same thing. Unlike peo­ple of a cer­tain age, minors are not per­mit­ted to have sex legal­ly; does that vio­late their “fun­da­men­tal rights”? This is sophistry.

And, what “basic rights of chil­dren”? The right to have access to teach­ing that vio­lates what their reli­gion, and their par­ents, and their soci­ety, believes is inap­pro­pri­ate for chil­dren? If this is what the EU believes is a “right,” then it is moral­ly tyran­ni­cal, and the Hun­gar­i­ans are cor­rect to reject it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rod Dreher is a senior edi­tor at The Amer­i­can Con­ser­v­a­tive. A vet­er­an of three decades of mag­a­zine and news­pa­per jour­nal­ism, he has also writ­ten three New York Times best­sellers—Live Not By Lies, The Bene­dict Option, and The Lit­tle Way of Ruthie Lem­ing—as well as Crunchy Cons and How Dante Can Save Your Life.Dreher lives in Baton Rouge, La.

Source: amer​i​can​con​ser​v​a​tive​.com