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“SOMETIMES IT FEELS like the 1930s all over again, except this time they won’t win,” former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told The Journal when asked about the recent passing of a bill in Hungary that bans Pride marches.
Speaking from Sofia, where Varadkar is attending the 10th anniversary of GLAS, the gay rights movement in Bulgaria, he said:
“I think it’s a very serious and retrograde step to ban Pride marches in Hungary. It’s contrary to our European values and I know a lot of Hungarians do not agree with it.”
The Hungarian government passed the bill last month, which critics say curtails fundamental rights and continues the crackdown on the EU country’s LGBTQ community.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government said it has never supported the parade and in recent years it has been gradually rolling back on LGBTQ rights in the name of “child protection”.
The legislation – drafted by Orban’s governing Fidesz-KDNP coalition – aims to ban the Pride march on the basis that it infringes on Hungary’s much-criticised “child protection” law, making it possible to fine those who attend the event.
Varadkar told The Journal that he hopes the march still goes ahead in June, adding:
“Connecting Pride to concerns about child protection is oldest trope in the book and seeks to link gay men with paedophilia. It’s a statistical fact that children are at most risk of abuse from their own parents, relatives and people in positions of trust not people they don’t know whether they be gay, roma or migrants.”
The former Fine Gael leader said the actions of the Hungarian government should be a lesson to everyone.
“It’s always the same playbook. Start by erasing trans people and their basic right to legal recognition, next ban discussion of gay relationships in schools – ‘don’t say gay’ laws, then crackdown on NGOs, universities and companies that promote equality, then ban public demonstrations, then move on to other groups,” he said.
While in Bulgaria, Varadkar is due to take part in a series of public engagements and media appearances, including the country’s TV equivalent of Primetime, where Varadkar says he is the programme’s first ever gay guest, which he described as “surreal”.
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