Defying Hungary’s ban on Pride marches—which von der Leyen personally demanded to be lifted—the city’s leftist mayor did allow the 30th Budapest Pride to go ahead on Saturday, June 28th.
The parade was attended by over 70 leftist MEPs and dozens of other Western politicians and activists, including Greta Thunberg in her iconic keffiyeh (how many Prides have been organized in Gaza again?), talking about Hungary being a “fascist” dictatorship for wanting to take indecency off the streets.
And the government did succeed in that regard: despite the record number of attendees, there was virtually no one dressed in a sexually explicit way, according to reports, unlike in previous years. What’s more important is that despite the expectations of the Left, who were almost hoping to face off a mounted police charge to justify the fascism narrative, the march ended without any violence. In fact, the police were only there to make sure that the small counter-protest, organized by a radical right-wing opposition party, would not get anywhere close to the Pride.
“This is a civilized country; we don’t hurt each other. It would be alien to our culture,” PM Orbán said a day before, adding that the organizers will face legal consequences, but peaceful attendees had nothing to fear.
At the same time, it’s worth seeing what the progressive West is up to: a German politician is facing expulsion from the “center-right” CSU for attending a protest against a drag queen event for children; a court ruled in France that the state must fund gender transitions and pay compensation for prior refusals; and a new law in Spain would give a two-year prison sentence to educators, doctors, psychologists, and even parents, who oppose the gender transition of minors.
