If only it was that simple! You have to take some relevant circumstances into account: A Hungarian civil society without…
Orbán’s Newest Hate Attack
Orbán in his radio speech this Friday again launched a hate attack against non-heterosexual Hungarians and telling the same moment that he had fought against communists for gay rights ►HU! Besides the fact that there can’t be found any information Orbán ever cared for homosexuals except hiding them – as he did with FIDESZ co-founder Szájer. Fact is that Hungary decriminalised homosexuality in 1961 – communists did and Orbán wasn’t even born. All other rights that had been withheld before never had been granted by an Orbán government, but by those lead by democratic parties. The anti-discrimination law, co-habitation rights, or the law on registered partnerships were passed when Orbán was in opposition, he even went to the constitutional court against the law about registered partnerships. So it is very clear that Orbán always fought for keeping the rights away from homosexuals other citizens have.
“Homosexuality is also present in the world, and whether it leads to paedophilia or not, there is a very big debate about it,” Orbán claimed ►HU. He started his hate campaign for his referendum against sexual self-determination with another outright lie. Azonnali asked for those studies and got now answer of course.
Péter Ungár (LMP), an openly gay MP wrote: “A serious, hateful, lying sentence. But this is not the point in itself, as it raises three questions:
- Now, then, does the right finally stop saying the clowning that a referendum called “child protection” is not about homophobia? Can the Prime Minister omit the false remarks that they do not interfere in the privacy of adults in the future, now that the Prime Minister is washing up all Hungarian homosexuals with an extremely serious crime?
- Although I don’t want to deal with anyone’s private life, where are the homosexual people working for FIDESZ in this highly interesting debate on the right? Do they think homosexuality leads to paedophilia? At least in the inner circle, do you dare to tell the lived reality of homosexuality?
- When Viktor Orbán spoke last June about defending the rights of homosexual guys, was he still wondering whether homosexuality would lead to paedophilia? When did you lie? Are you now?” On his facebook account ►HU.
Same politician told 444 in an earlier interview ►HU about FIDESZ politicians: “it is an extremely high degree of hypocrisy for someone to do a homophobic campaign while not being explicitly heterosexual.” It points into the same direction as the devil’s advocate, who stated that the minister of justice Judit Varga would have affairs with other women in the end of December ►HU. This statement, not even noteworthy in a decent democracy, where all citizens have equal rights, is right now investigated by the prosecutor as if it would be a criminal offence ►HU. If there would have been remained any questions, whether the prosecutors in Hungary are working for justice as an instrument of power, these should be answered now.
Before I go on allow me to spend a few words to 2 European organisations. Both are completely independent from the EU, but connected to each other. The Council of Europe was founded already in 1949 to hold up democracy and human rights in Europe after WWII, members today are all fully recognised states covering the European continent with at least a part of their territory with only 3 exceptions: Belarus, Kazahstan, and Vatican City. Most famous institution of the Council is the European Court of Human Rights. The Venice Commission is a body of the Council of Europe and advising it concerning constitutional questions, originally founded to help the those days new members of the council to adopt democratic constitutions after the fall of communism. The commission is made up by legal experts on this field and grew in 2002 over the borders of the Council of Europe. Since all EU members are also members of the Council the EU has no own institution dealing with human rights and the EU relies also on the expertise of the Venice Commission.
The Venice Commission declared that Orbán’s “paedophilia law” breaches human rights standards. The Venice Commission stated ►EN: “On the substance of the Act, the Venice Commission says that considerations of public morality, and protection of minors cannot justify the blanket prohibitions/restrictions of propagation or portrayal of divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality. The Venice Commission recalls that gender, as a component of personal identity, and homosexuality, as a variation of sexual orientation, are protected under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and thus cannot be deemed contrary to morals by public authorities, as reflected in Article 10 § 2 of the ECHR. Indeed, the amendments are incompatible with European Court of Human Rights case law, which recognises gender identity as a component of personal identity, falling under the right to respect for private life.”
This week the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, said ►EN: “The decision of the Hungarian government to conduct a national referendum regarding children’s access to information concerning sexual orientation and gender identity issues on the same day as the parliamentary elections is deeply regrettable as it furthers the instrumentalisation of the human rights of LGBTI people.”
Orbán himself called Mijatović’s reminder to the facts “fooling around.” Orbán said about the commissioner ►EN: “With all due respect, I have to say that this lady often says nonsense. The same goes for now “
The website of Budapest Pride has taken the hateful attack of Orbán as opportunity to express their own view on Orbán’s way to act ►HU: “Viktor Orbán tries to wash child abuse with gay and lesbian people by deliberately misleading. In fact, the government is the child abuser, which in recent years has not been ashamed to sacrifice the physical, mental and emotional health of countless children in order to retain power. The government is the child abuser, which prevents hundreds of abused children from being adopted, who thus have to grow up in public care or with foreign adopters.”
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It is pretty clear based on numerous studies in the Western world LBTQ people are no more likely than heterosexuals to be associated with child molestation. The classic study conducted in the USA can be read here https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8008535/.
There is no question that Budapest Pride is correct that the ban on adoption of children in Hungary by same sex couples is a problem and it is discrimination, but the idea that it leads to foreign adoption is interesting? There have been a few Hungarian Catholic families here in Chicago over the years that have adopted Hungarian children, in one case that I know of though a group in the USA called Children’s House International Adoptions. Another organization that does Hungarian adoptions is Lifeline Children’s services a Christian based agency. My understanding is that most of the few adopted children going to families in the USA are children of Roma descent. The other group is children with disabilities, but often they are Roma children with disabilities in reality. Compared to their overall numbers in the population, Roma children are overrepresented in institutional care in Hungary based on every study. Research in Hungary indicates that once a Roma child is placed into institutional care it is very unlikely that s/he will succeed in leaving before reaching the age of 18. If one of these Roma children are adopted by a foreign family they are extremely lucky.
Part of the problem here is that Hungary and the USA are both parties to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Convention) and that agreement says nothing about bans by a county like Hungary allowing adoptions for only married heterosexual couples. Actually the formal statements from the adoption agencies in the USA do not indicate formally that LBTQ adoptions are not allowed, instead it is vague in one case saying; “Hungarian law does allow single people to adopt. However, Hungarian authorities may not encourage these adoptions based on the strongly held opinion that a child should be raised by a married couple in a traditional family.” So the messaging is clear, gay couples in the USA need not apply to adopt Hungarian children. Very few Hungarian adoptions happen in the USA every year. Of those that do some are also family adoptions to related relatives living in the USA. Several years ago I saw something from the Hungarian embassy in Washington indicating that only 13 Hungarian children were adopted here in the USA.
The other part of the problem is how Roma children are taken into the Hungarian child protection system because of what we here in the USA call neglect. If a Roma family has a disabled child because of poverty a finding of what would be called in the USA neglect on the part of TEGYESZ (Child protection services) office is often triggered. In Hungary TEGYESZ is allowed to use what is called the child’s best interest as a standard of review. The few Roma children that adopted into the USA are based on what TEGYESZ calls ‘secret adoptions” meaning the fact that the child is Roma is not disclosed to the adopting family nor is any information relating to why it was in the child’s best interest to be removed or if the child was abandoned. Any disabling condition of the child is disclosed. Another part of the problem for adoption of these children within Hungary since many have disabilities are the very low family support payments paid in Hungary to families with disabled children called the supplemental child protection allowance. There has been an on-going fight by these families in Hungary for more support, especially for those families for have children with more significant disabilities. Through their advocacy they have improved the situation a little, but really adopting a child with a disability who also faced with looking Roma and the real economic problems supporting that child in Hungary makes such adoptions difficult.
Here is a similar study from 2011 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21057866/ that comes to this conclusion: “These findings suggest that adolescents reared in lesbian families are less likely than their peers to be victimized by a parent or other caregiver, and that daughters of lesbian mothers are more likely to engage in same-sex behavior and to identify as bisexual.” There is no debate at all about this issue using any reasonable studies from Western countries.
Perhaps you are interested in this piece about one of the last same sex couples that was allowed to adopt. Some of the problems you pointed out are covered in this report as well.
https://telex.hu/foto/2022/01/06/szivarvanycsalad-egyedulallok-orokbefogadas-tegyesz
That was an extremely interesting and well written article about the adoption by István and Tamás. In general it would be near impossible for an American Hungarian family to be able to adopt twins from a pregnant woman back in Hungary, in general the children up for foreign adoption are already in placements by the child protective system in Hungary and are on what is called the national list discussed in that article. The issue for István and Tamás in adopting potentially Roma children in the article was interesting especially the dynamics with friends and relatives. The issue of the fees involved in adoptions discussed in the article apply even more extremely in foreign adoptions of Hungarian children, you pay both the Hungarian agency and the agency in the USA from what I have heard. The family I knew that did a Hungarian adoption were required to spend 50 days in Hungary before taking custody of the child so the costs for them were significant.
What I found interesting was while the couple were adopting a Roma child there was not concern really with what is called here in the USA cultural continuity with the birth culture of the children. This is a big deal here in the USA, so for example when a native American child is adopted by a white family this is a consideration in the approval process. I guess the process here is much more influenced by political correctness. Thanks for the link to the article and it is more than obvious that István and Tamás are great parents for their adopted children proving the complete ignorance of Fidesz and Orban.
Both Istvans continue their decent, kind and factual comments regarding LGBT individuals. Proud to read the post today, let alone subsequent comments. A favorite quote of mine from Dr. Abraham Maslow sums up my sentiments about the anti LGBT policies of the regime: “Let people realize that every time they threaten someone or humiliate or hurt unnecessarily or dominate or reject another human being, they become forces for the creation of pathology…” In the alternative …”every [person] who is kind, helpful, decent, psychologically democratic, affectionate and warm, is a psycho-therapeutic force even though a small one.”