Hungary’s parliament passed a constitutional amendment permitting the government to ban public events organised by LGBTQ+ communities — a move that legal scholars and critics describe as yet another step towards authoritarianism by the populist government.
The amendment, which required a two-thirds vote, passed along party lines with 140 votes for and 21 against. It was proposed by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Ahead of the vote, the final step for the amendment, opposition politicians and other protesters attempted to blockade the entrance to a parliament parking garage. Police physically removed demonstrators, who had used zip ties to bind themselves together.
The amendment declares that children’s rights to moral, physical and spiritual development supersede any right other than the right to life, including that to peacefully assemble. Hungary's contentious “child protection” legislation prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors aged under 18.
The amendment codifies a law fast-tracked through parliament in March that bans public events held by LGBTQ+ communities, including the popular Pride event in Budapest that draws thousands annually.
That law also allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify people who attend prohibited events, such as Budapest Pride, and can come with fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints (€488).
Pride march ban in Hungary triggers protests, EU condemnation
David Bedo, a lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party who participated in the attempted blockade, said before the vote that Orbán and Fidesz for the past 15 years “have been dismantling democracy and the rule of law, and in the past two or three months, we see that this process has been sped up.”
He said as elections approach in 2026 and Orbán’s party lags in the polls behind a popular new challenger from the opposition, “they will do everything in their power to stay in power.”
Opposition lawmakers used air horns to disrupt the vote, which continued after a few moments.
But as a result of the protest, the parliamentary immunity of Bedo, and five other Momentum MP's was suspended.
"As the leader of the Momentum faction, I am now not only banned from parliament, but my immunity as a member of parliament has also been taken away," he writes on the party's website.
Bedo said he was also fined the hefty sum of 24 million Forint (€58,836) "because I disrupted the shameful amendment to the assembly law with smoke candles." He, and his five collegues are now "banned from Parliament." The other MPs got comparable fines.
'Child protection'
Hungary’s government has campaigned against LGBTQ+ communities in recent years, and argues its “child protection” policies, which forbid the availability to minors of any material that mentions homosexuality, are needed to protect children from what it calls “woke ideology" and “gender madness.”
Critics say the measures do little to protect children and are being used to distract from more serious problems facing the country and mobilize Orbán’s right-wing base ahead of elections.
“This whole endeavor which we see launched by the government, it has nothing to do with children’s rights,” said Danel Dobrentey, a lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, calling it "pure propaganda.”
Constitution recognizes two sexes
Parotting regulations now in place in the United States, the new amendment also states that the constitution recognizes two sexes, male and female, an expansion of an earlier amendment that prohibits same-sex adoption by stating that a mother is a woman and a father is a man.
The declaration provides a constitutional basis for denying the gender identities of transgender people, as well as ignoring the existence of intersex individuals who are born with sexual characteristics that do not align with binary conceptions of male and female.
In a statement on Monday, government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote that the change is “not an attack on individual self-expression, but a clarification that legal norms are based on biological reality.”
Dobrentey, the lawyer, said it was “a clear message” for transgender and intersex people: “It is definitely and purely and strictly about humiliating people and excluding them, not just from the national community, but even from the community of human beings."
The amendment is the 15th to Hungary’s constitution since Orbán’s party unilaterally authored and approved it in 2011.
