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Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
Photo: ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is taking a further step to exclude LGBT * people from social life: His right-wing conservative government wants to include definitions of parenthood and gender in the country's constitution that are directed against homosexuals and transgender people.
According to the draft submitted by Justice Minister Judit Varga to parliament on Tuesday, the constitution should state that "the mother is a woman and the father a man".
It should also be stipulated that the gender of a person is to be defined solely as that at the time of their birth - a regulation that is directed against transgender people.
Since May it has been forbidden in Hungary to register a change of sex with the authorities.
According to the Reuters news agency, the government wrote that the reason for the constitutional amendment was that it had to protect children from "new, modern ideological trends in the western world (...) that endanger the healthy development of children".
According to the draft constitutional amendment, children should be guaranteed an "education based on the values of Hungary's Christian culture".
Ongoing dispute with the EU over the Charter of Fundamental Rights
The project was introduced at a time when Hungary is already in a dispute with the European Union.
It is about safeguarding the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Among other things, the charter provides for the protection of sexual minorities.
According to the so-called rule of law mechanism, which is to be linked to the EU's new seven-year budget, payments to member states could in future be reduced if they violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
According to information from the AFP news agency, Orbán threatened to veto the budget in a letter to the EU Commission if the rule of law mechanism was retained.
The budget has to be approved unanimously by the member states.
Both Hungary and Poland have been criticized in the EU for violating the rule of law for years.
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luz / AFP / Reuters
