The city of Budapest will hold its 30th anniversary pride parade on June 28 as an official city event to celebrate freedom, the city’s liberal mayor, Gergely Karazoni, announced on Monday. The decision comes in response to a new law that allows police to ban LGBT events.
The Hungarian parliament, in which the ruling right-wing Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has a clear majority, passed a law in March that creates a legal basis for banning LGBT gatherings, in order to protect children.
The law also allows police to use cameras with facial recognition technology to identify participants in such events.
Parade organizers had previously said the parade would go ahead despite the new law, and the mayor confirmed in a video message on Monday that the city of Budapest would cooperate with the organizers. He stressed that since it is an official city event – a celebration of freedom – no additional permits are required from the authorities, Reuters reported.
“The history of Budapest is a history of freedom and solidarity. There are no first- and second-class citizens in this city. Here we know that only together can we be free. That is why neither freedom nor love, not even Budapest Pride, can be banned in this city,” Karasoni said.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovac did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prime Minister Orban, who faces challenging elections next year, pushed through constitutional changes in April that recognize only two genders – male and female.
His government is pursuing a conservative Christian agenda, and the intensified campaign against the LGBT community is aimed at mobilizing Fidesz’s voters, mainly from rural parts of the country.
Orban has previously said that organizers “should not even try” to organize Pride this year.
During the past 15 years of Fidesz dominance, Orban has based his political platform on rhetoric about protecting Hungary’s Christian identity from Muslim migrants and, as he says, “gender and LGBT ideology” imposed from Brussels.
The Hungarian government’s anti-LGBT campaign intensified in 2021, when parliament passed a law banning the use of educational materials deemed to promote homosexuality or gender reassignment, again citing child protection.
