Viktor Orban (center right) presiding over a session of the Hungarian Parliament. – Photo: Elekes Andor, via Wikimedia.
Hungary’s parliament has passed a resolution empowering the government to hold a referendum on LGBTQ issues, as part of a ploy to weaponize anti-LGBTQ sentiment to help the Fidesz-led conservative government cling to power in an election year.
On Tuesday, the Fidesz majority coalition voted on party-lines votes to approve four referendum questions related to sex education programs in schools and the presentation of sexual content in the media.
The questions will ask voters whether they support sexual orientation lessons for minors in public schools without parental consent; whether they back the “promotion’ of gender-affirming treatments for transgender minors; whether they support “unrestricted sexual media content for minors that affects their development”; and the “display of gender-sensitive media content to minors.”
“The Hungarian government proposes that citizens should have a chance to express their stance on the issues of gender propaganda,” deputy minister Balazs Orban told parliament, advocating on behalf of passing the referenda. “We are committed. We believe that we…have to say no to LGBTQ propaganda in schools carried out with the help of NGOs and media, without parental consent.”
Balazs Orbán also argued that holding the referendum on the same day as the general election would save taxpayers money, although it is up to President Janos Ader to set the date.
Ader, an ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has not yet set a date for the general parliamentary election, which is expected to be held in April, Reuters reports.
Viktor Orbán, a populist right-winger who has been prime minister since 2010, pushed for a referendum after the government passed a series of laws attacking LGBTQ rights, setting limits on schools’ ability to teach about homosexuality or transgender issues, and curtailing LGBTQ portrayals in media — even going so far as to shut down liberal-leaning media institutions.
Orbán, who has sought to cast Western influences as a threat to Christian values and railed against affirming or acknowledging non-traditional gender roles and sexual orientations, has argued that the referendum is necessary to protect children and foster family values.
But critics note that Orbán is expected to face his first competitive election in more than a decade, and have accused him of using the referendum to rally social conservatives to the polls in the hope they’ll back Fidesz parliamentary candidates.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has reposted a CNN clip featuring Doug Wilson, leader of the Christian evangelical movement he follows, in which the pastor calls for making gay sex illegal.
“In the late ’70s and early ’80s, sodomy was a felony in all 50 states. That America of that day was not a totalitarian hellhole,” Wilson says in the seven-minute segment, reports the Daily Beast.
Wilson goes on to say he wishes the United States would revive anti-sodomy laws, which criminalized same-sex relations -- and, in some states, even certain non-vaginal sex acts between consenting heterosexual partners.
The Family Research Council is blasting Ulta Beauty for selling hair products from nonbinary reality star and hairstylist Jonathan Van Ness, best known for Netflix's Queer Eye, and for posting an Instagram video showing Van Ness in a multi-colored dress and white heels, "jumping and shrieking" with excitement as store employees unveil a display featuring a large poster of him.
The famously anti-LGBTQ group claims Van Ness' behavior mocks women and "what he perceives to be female behavior." It also notes that Ulta previously hosted a now-deleted podcast episode featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which it cites as further evidence the company promotes a caricatured view of femininity.
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge has partially overturned Virginia's ban on conversion therapy by signing a June consent decree with Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Virginia Department of Health Professions.
The decree stems from a lawsuit by Front Royal counselors John and Janet Raymond and allows licensed professionals to conduct "talk therapy" aimed at convincing minors to "change" or suppress feelings related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, provided they use only verbal methods and avoid physical conversion practices.
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