Hungary orders publisher to slap disclaimer on LGBT+ children’s book in ‘unconstitutional’ assault on free speech
A Pride protest in Budapest, capital of Hungary, in 2019. (Getty/ATTILA KISBENEDEK)
Hungary has ordered a publisher of LGBT+ books to print a disclaimer on a queer fairytale anthology.
The Labrisz Lesbian Association was ordered to add the disclaimer to any book containing LGBT+ themes after it published the fairytale tome, titled Wonderland Is For Everyone, Reuters reported.
Authors explained that the book is intended to represent everyone. It features the tale of a prince marrying a prince and a doe wishing to become a buck, as well as a reimagined Snow White, now renamed “Leaf Brown”.
But such stories are, according to the Government Office of the Capital City Budapest, a threat to society itself. Yes, really.
“The book is sold as a fairytale, called so on its cover and designed accordingly, but it hides the fact that it depicts behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles,” Reuters reported the office stating.
As a result, Labrisz was ordered to slap disclaimers on all books with LGBT+ content, including Wonderland Is For Everyone.
The group, alongside fellow LGBT+ advocacy and legal aid organisation Háttér Society, now plan to sue the government in response. It says the disclaimers are discriminatory and unconstitutional.
“It is obvious that the Consumer Protection Authority is acting under political pressure,” Tamás Dombos, board member of Háttér Society, told PinkNews.
“The government has geared up its crusade against LGBT+ people in 2020 ‒ and it looks like this will continue in 2021. The Hungarian LGBT+ community and organizations are in total unity and ready to fight back, every step of the way.”
Hungary continues its attacks on the LGBT+ community.
Eastern Europe has seen a renewed wave of right-wing nationalists funnelling their wrath on LGBT+ people. The community is immoral, they say in Poland, Hungary, among others, fuelling alarm among fellow European Union members.
This hostility towards LGBT+ people in Hungary has left LGBT+ activists worldwide startled and fearful, with the country’s right-wing ruling party Fidesz eroding queer rights while erasing trans people from existence.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. (Getty/JOHN THYS)
Viktor Orbán, the party’s populist, autocratic leader, has passed a rafter of laws curtailing the rights of queer Hungarians – including crushing crucial civil liberties in same-sex adoption – all the while further consolidating and fortifying the party’s place at the top.
Obrán has sought to position LGBT+ people as enemies of the state all the while upping his attacks that are not only reserved for the Hungarian public but long-term allies, too.
József Szájer, a Hungarian MEP who was not only a founding member of Fidesz but helped author the conditional amendment that banned marriage equality, was caught late last year at a gay orgy.
He resigned from Fidesz, but not long before Orbán dubbed his behaviour as “unacceptable and indefensible”.
Some LGBT+ Hungarians with the means to do so have already fled to neighbouring countries where they can “dream of having a better season”, they said.
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