Just over two months after the defeat of Hungary’s conservative government in the April 12th elections, liberal Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony ordered LGBT flags to be displayed all along one of Budapest’s most iconic bridges, the Elizabeth Bridge, over the weekend.
The move comes ahead of the Budapest Pride Parade, scheduled to take place on June 27th.
The presence of the flags was noted with consternation by the international conservative community, with many right-wing commentators taking to social media to express disagreement and to recall that no such thing could have happened under Viktor Orbán’s right-wing government.
One person in the Hungarian capital was so upset that he took matters into his own hands and, according to various videos posted online, he removed the flags one by one and threw them into the Danube on Sunday, in broad daylight, walking calmly on the bridge, undisturbed.
The videos have now gone viral, including on X and Reddit, with many celebrating the—for now—unknown man as a “hero.”
Mayor Gergely Karácsony said he had responded to the incident by filing a police report.
