Here is European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen lying about the new Hungarian law:

This Hungarian bill is a shame.

It discriminates people on the basis of their sexual orientation & goes against the EU’s fundamental values.

We will not compromise.

I will use all the legal powers of @EU_Commission to ensure that the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed. pic.twitter.com/RzWPpue0CD

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 23, 2021

Watch that short clip. She characterizes the law as being contrary to a European Union “where you are free to be who you want to be” and “where you are free to love who you want.” But the Hungarian law does not ban homosexuality or transgenderism! It only restricts the advocacy of homosexuality and transgenderism to children and minors. You can certainly oppose that if you wish, but that is a very different thing than opposing outlawing homosexuality or transgenderism. Ursula von der Leyen is equating protecting children from having drag queen story hour to tolerating in law adult homosexual love (as Hungarian law does, though it does not have same-sex marriage, only civil unions).

This is a smear. But it’s easier to get people angry at the Hungarian government if the EU Commission convinces them that the Hungarian law is aimed at oppressing all gays and transgenders across the board, instead of narrowly targeted at advocacy aimed at kids. Von Der Leyen is claiming that defending the Blue’s Clues Pride Parade and Drag Queen Story Hour is a matter of “fundamental human rights” — but not the right of parents to protect their children from this kind of advocacy.

That the president of the European Commission chooses to frame the conflict like this tells you all you need to know about how the EU bureaucracy regards the traditional family, and religious belief. A Hungarian government spokesman said today:

“We stand ready to debate the law with those who have spoken out against it,” he told the BBC on Tuesday. “The law is strictly about the protection of children. It says that for minors under 18, sexual education has to be appropriate and what we don’t want is the intrusion of so-called LGBTQ+ lobby NGOs and pressure groups walking into kindergartens and schools to explain to children why it’s a great idea to have hormone treatments and operations to change their sex before they’re 18. These are not acceptable practices.”

Why are these acceptable practices? More to the point, why aren’t Hungary’s democratically-elected lawmakers permitted to decide what is permitted for Hungarian children to receive? The contempt is breathtaking.

Here is a link to the actual text of the law, in Hungarian.

Most of the law deals with pedophilia and child pornography. I’ve run the relevant excerpts — that is, the parts that are controversial — through Google Translate. Here it is. I welcome correction from Hungarian speakers:

Act XLVIII of 2008 on the basic conditions and certain restrictions of economic advertising activity.

Section 8 [§ (4)] of the Act shall be replaced by the words “and such” shall be replaced by the words “further
the following paragraph 1a is inserted:

“1a. Advertising made available to persons under the age of 18 which promotes sexuality shall be prohibited.
self-serving or deviating from self-identity corresponding to gender of birth, gender and promotes and displays homosexuality. ”

So no advertising aimed at children that promotes transgenderism and homosexuality. It is unclear if this affects all advertising that might be seen by children (which is to say, all advertising), or just ads aimed at kids.

More:

In the child protection system, the state protects children according to their gender of birth
the right to self-identity. ”
(2) A Living. the following 6 / A. The following section is added:
„6 / A. §
In order to ensure the purposes and rights of the child contained in this Act, persons under the age of eighteen are prohibited pornographic as well as make content available that is sexually self-serving deviates from the identity corresponding to the sex of birth, the gender and promotes and displays homosexuality. ”

Translation: no material aimed at kids promoting gender ideology and homosexuality. I don’t know what “promotes and displays” means — that is, the limits of the law. Perhaps it is clearer in the Hungarian. My guess is that this refers specifically to material produced for an audience of children and minor teenagers.

More:

§ 11
(1) Act CXC of 2011 on National Public Education. Act [9. § (8) of the “In this in the case where the institution maintains “is replaced by” In this case, if maintainer of the institution ”.] (hereinafter: Nktv.) Section 9 is replaced by the following (12) the following paragraph is added:
”

(12) For students, information on sexual culture, sexuality, sexual orientation and special attention should be paid to the development of a session on sexual development XVI of the Basic Law. Article 1 (1). These occupations should not be aimed at birth gender identity deviation, gender reassignment, and homosexuality to promote it. ”

(2) The Nktv. Chapter 7 is replaced by the following 9 / A. The following section is added:

„9 / A. §
(1) An employee of the educational institution employed in his / her own teaching position and concluded with a school health care professional in the institution and with the institution a person or entity other than a public body with a cooperation agreement sexual culture, sexuality in the context of lessons or other activities for students, sexual orientation, sexual development, the harmful effects of drug use, the Internet, occupational hazards and other physical and mental health hereinafter referred to as “the program”) may only take place if it is a body designated by law registered.

This bit is really messy. As far as I can tell — again, this is a machine translation of a document written in legal language — this part of the new law requires that pro-LGBT sex education is banned, and that those who undertake sex education must be officially approved by the state. 

I completely understand why this offends progressives. But I also completely understand why Hungarian lawmakers who voted for this are tired of the propaganda aimed at their children. And I support them. I would welcome clarification to the law to guarantee that parents who wanted to teach pro-LGBT lessons to their children would be able to do so legally, however.

Look, I spent part of this evening participating in a live forum with Paivi Rasanen, the Finnish MP and traditional Christian who faces a criminal hate crimes trial for having tweeted a verse from the book of Romans, critical of homosexuality. Here is a Christian woman who might go to prison for two years simply for publicly endorsing what it says in the Bible, despite it offending some homosexuals and their allies. And I’m supposed to worry about little Magyar kids having to go online to watch Kermit the Frog hosting a Pride concert alongside a drag queen, as opposed to watching it on Hungarian TV? I’m supposed to worry that seven-year-old Hungarians are not going to be told that having penises doesn’t mean that they are boys? Forget it.

Ursula von der Leyen is not being honest about the Hungarian law. If it were prohibiting all speech about LGBTs, she would have a point. It doesn’t. It only covers speech aimed at children. It would prohibit something like this filth presented by a state-sanctioned teen workshop in Boston 21 years ago:

Whiteman sat in on a “youth only, ages 14-21” workshop called “What They Didn’t Tell You About Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class.” If “they” didn’t tell you about this stuff, it’s probably because “they” worried they’d be sent to jail.

The raucous session was led by Massachusetts Department of Education employees Margot Abels and Julie Netherland, and Michael Gaucher, an AIDS educator from the Massachusetts public health agency. Gaucher opened the session by asking the teens how they know whether or not they’ve had sex. Someone asked whether oral sex was really sex.

“If that’s not sex, then the number of times I’ve had sex has dramatically decreased, from a mountain to a valley, baby!” squealed Gaucher. He then coaxed a reluctant young participant to talk about which orifices need to be filled for sex to have occurred: “Don’t be shy, honey, you can do it.”

Later, the three adults took written questions from the kids. One inquired about “fisting,” a sex practice in which one inserts his hand and forearm into the rectum of his partner. The helpful and enthusiastic Gaucher demonstrated the proper hand position for this act. Abels described fisting as “an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with,” and praised it for putting one “into an exploratory mode.”

Gaucher urged the teens to consult their “really hip” Gay/Straight Alliance adviser for hints on how to come on to a potential sex partner. The trio went on to explain that lesbians could indeed experience sexual bliss through rubbing their clitorises together, and Gaucher told the kids that male ejaculate is rumored to taste “sweeter if people eat celery.” On and on like this the session went.

The parents who exposed this were made into scapegoats, and really suffered. In Hungary, despite what Ursula von der Leyen says, you are free to love who you want, but you aren’t free to tell kids about it in the classroom or on TV, and encourage them to do the same. Hungary isn’t Massachusetts, thank God.