Hungary passes constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ public events,
seen as a major blow to rights
[April 15, 2025]
By JUSTIN SPIKE
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s parliament on Monday passed an
amendment to the constitution that allows the government to ban public
events by LGBTQ+ communities, a decision that legal scholars and critics
call another step toward 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 ($546).
Dávid Bedő, 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.
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 Dánel Döbrentey, a lawyer
with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, calling it "pure propaganda.”
Constitution recognizes two sexes
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.
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Hungary’s parliament has passed an amendment to the constitution
that allows the government to ban public events by LGBTQ+
communities, in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, April 14, 2025. (Robert
Hegedus/MTI via AP)
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 Zoltán Kovács
wrote that the change is “not an attack on individual
self-expression, but a clarification that legal norms are based on
biological reality.”
Döbrentey, 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.
Facial recognition to identify demonstrators
Ádám Remport, a lawyer with the HCLU, said that while Hungary has
used facial recognition tools since 2015 to assist police in
criminal investigations and finding missing persons, the recent law
banning Pride allows the technology to be used in a much broader and
problematic manner. That includes for monitoring and deterring
political protests.
“One of the most fundamental problems is its invasiveness, just the
sheer scale of the intrusion that happens when you apply mass
surveillance to a crowd,” Remport said.
“More salient in this case is the effect on the freedom of assembly,
specifically the chilling effect that arises when people are scared
to go out and show their political or ideological beliefs for fear
of being persecuted,” he added.
Suspension of citizenship
The amendment passed Monday also allows for Hungarians who hold dual
citizenship in a non-European Economic Area country to have their
citizenship suspended for up to 10 years if they are deemed to pose
a threat to public order, public security or national security.
Hungary has taken steps in recent months to protect its national
sovereignty from what it claims are foreign efforts to influence its
politics or even topple Orbán’s government.
The self-described “illiberal” leader has accelerated his
longstanding efforts to crack down on critics such as media outlets
and groups devoted to civil rights and anti-corruption, which he
says have undermined Hungary’s sovereignty by receiving financial
assistance from international donors.
In a speech laden with conspiracy theories in March, Orbán compared
people who work for such groups to insects, and pledged to
“eliminate the entire shadow army” of foreign-funded “politicians,
judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists.”
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