The annual Budapest Pride March took place this Saturday, 15 July in Budapest, Hungary. The march was colourful, but basically uneventful. According to a press release on the event’s official website, over 35,000 people participated in the march celebrating the LGBTQ community in Hungary. Unlike at some of the previous instalments, there was no major mass of fervent protesters present this time.
However, that does not mean the Pride March went ahead without controversy.
38 foreign embassies in Budapest put out an official statement, condemning the Hungarian government for allegedly failing to protect the rights of the gay, lesbian, and transsexual minority.
Among the embassies signing the condemnation are the United States, Germany, Belgium, Australia, and Slovakia.
They are joined by an additional ten cultural institutions, including the British Council Hungary, the Estonian Institute, and the Institut français, in endorsing the Pride March.
‘We are concerned with legislation and political rhetoric, including in Hungary, that is in tension with principles of non-discrimination, international human rights law and human dignity, and contributes to stigmatization of the LGBTQI+ community,’ the joint statement read.
While no piece of legislation is specifically referenced, all the press coverage around the press release mentions the Child Protection Act, the law that made it illegal to teach modern gender theory and promote sex transition treatment to minors in schools. The case of a bookstore being fined 12 million HUF for not properly age restricting a comic book about a gay character’s love life was also received extensive reporting.
It is not surprising to see the US Embassy attempting to sway public opinion on domestic issues in their host nation;
it is not the first time they do so in Hungary.
Back in April, they sponsored a billboard campaign urging the Hungarian public to be more against Russia in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. Back in 15 June, kicking off a month-long pride celebration at the beginning of summer as per the American tradition, US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman gave a speech in which he echoed similar sentiments to those in the 38 embassies’ joint press release, condemning the Orbán administration for their supposed mistreatment of LGBTQ people in Hungary. Ambassador Pressman, a married gay man himself, attended the Budapest Pride March and gave another speech there.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs State Secretary Tamás Menczer responded to the embassies’ joint statement in a Facebook post. In it, he wrote: ‘We will defend the children of Hungary from the LGBTQ propaganda, even under pressure and attacks.’
He then went on to address six ambassadors specifically. He took a jab at the French ambassador for the recent riots in her country, her Slovakian counterpart for the series of political crises in Slovakia, and even attacked the US ambassador for the irregularities in the 2020 US Presidential election. The other three diplomats called out specifically were the Swedish, Dutch, and the German ambassadors.
Meanwhile, Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó took to Facebook, and posted an image of a family of storks the day after the Budapest Pride March, evidently carrying a metaphoric message. (The caption of the photo reads ‘Mummy, Daddy and children.’)
The Curious Case of the LGBTQ Bench in Budapest
Ambassador Pressman also referenced the saga of the rainbow-coloured park bench in Tompa Street in the 9th district of Budapest. Amnesty International put up the pied coating in support of the LGBT community on 6 July, with the words ‘open, free, happy’ written on the backrest. Within two days, it was repainted to green and white, the colours of the local football team Ferencváros, with a new message: ‘Aryan Greens’ also added.
In the following days, the bench got its rainbow colours back, just to be painted back to green and white overnight again. This time, the words ‘STOP LGBTQ’ were sprayed on the pavement in front of the now (in)famous bench.
It also spent a couple of days in neutral brown coating, before being painted in the national red-white-green colours on 14 July. However, at long last, the bench saga came to an end later that day. After getting probably more repaints and media coverage than any other public bench in human history, the Tompa Street pew was removed. Whether for ever or temporarily, remains to be seen.
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