Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Hungary’s path puts everyone’s rights in danger

Graeme Reid 6th October 2021

The ostensible assault on LGBT+ rights in Hungary, Poland and Russia has a very big target—anyone who signs up to universal norms.

Hungary,Orban,PiS,Poland,Russia,Putin,gay propaganda law,traditional values
Viktor Orbán—not standing for European values (Alexandros Michailidis / shutterstock.com)

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, used the visit by the pope to Budapest last month to advance his populist agenda. He said he had been encouraged by his meeting with Frances to advance ‘family values’. Indeed, Orbán claimed to have the pontiff’s imprimatur: ‘Moreover, he said: go ahead, go for it. And go for it we will.’

But what is Orbán ‘going for’, beyond the rhetoric?

With elections looming next year and a poor record in government so far, the increasingly autocratic Orbán has found a new target in attacking LGBT rights, in which ‘family values’ is a proxy for a whole other agenda. It started with refugees and now it is sexual and gender minorities. It is best understood as a cynical move to distract attention from Orbán’s bungling of the state response to the pandemic, as well as corruption scandals involving business oligarchs and dodgy dealings with China.

Under the banner of ‘family values’, in 2020 Hungary banned adoption by same-sex couples, barred transgender people from changing their legal gender and refused to ratify the Istanbul convention, which aims to protect women from violence. This year Hungary passed a law which equates homosexuality with paedophilia and bans ‘promotion and portrayal of homosexuality’ and gender diversity to under-18s, in sexuality education, films or advertisements.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Putin’s playbook

Orbán is taking a leaf out of Vladimir Putin’s playbook. The Russian president has used the spectre of LGBT rights as a wedge to consolidate a conservative support base at home, delineate regional zones of influence and forge global alliances. It started in earnest with the passage in 2013 of the ‘gay propaganda law’, an administrative regulation which forbids the positive portrayal of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ where minors are present.

In effect, the law inhibits any such presentation of LGBT identities in the public domain. It has a chilling effect on freedom of expression, being vague enough to make Russians afraid to fall foul of the law. Hungary’s law has strong echoes although it goes even further, banning any depiction of LGBT people to children.

Russia’s law has had a stifling effect on teachers and counsellors and has been used to shut down an online support network for LGBT kids. It has been associated with an upturn in homophobic violence. There is no reason to think the impact of Hungary’s law will be any different.

The ‘gay propaganda law’ has proved a very effective tool for Putin—if very harmful for many Russians. On a domestic level, the negative connnotations of ‘propaganda’, with its Stalinist associations, and the positive affirmation of purported national ‘tradition’, pitted against the forces of globalisation, have proved an effective shorthand. They have mobilise Putin’s small-town and rural supporters in the face of public protests in the big urban centres (in as much as these have been allowed).  

Regionally, the rhetoric has been used to contest spheres of influence between the Russian-backed Eurasian customs union and the European Union. On a global level, at the United Nations Russia has been at least partially successful in assuming the mantle of protector of ‘traditional values’—counterposed to universal norms such as human rights—and in the process forging geopolitical alliances with like-minded states.

Sustained attack

Poland under the Law and Justice Party (PiS) has become another outlier in Europe, where the independence of the judiciary, civil society and the media have been under sustained assault. The government has cast LGBT rights as a dangerous and subversive ideology, while local authorities have declared ‘LGBT-ideology free zones’.

Warsaw has systematically attacked reproductive rights and comprehensive sexuality education and threatened to withdraw from the Istanbul convention—the convention includes a reference to sexual orientation and a broad definition of gender. This was an election rallying point in 2019, designed to help the PiS secure a second term in office.

Leaders such as Orbán, or the key PiS figure Jarosław Kaczyński, and the parties they represent project an unalloyed vision of their societies. They present themselves as the authentic voice of ‘the people’, against ‘liberal elites’ accused of defying ‘common sense’.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

This dangerous world of nationalist rhetoric produces ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, shoring up support by concocting imagined threats to the nation. In Hungary, migrants have been vilified as a perceived external demon, while LGBT people have been cast as both an internal threat and a foreign influence.

‘Gender ideology’

Why do advances in women’s or LGBT rights elicit such apocalyptic fantasies of destruction of the social order? Connecting developments in Poland and Hungary is the concept of ‘gender ideology’. This is closely linked to the idea of traditional values but more amorphous and, it seems, better able to rally disparate groups against a common perceived enemy. First coined decades ago by the Holy See, ‘gender ideology’ has become a ubiquitous term, strategically deployed to curtail sexual and reproductive rights.

 As an ‘empty signifier’ (in semiotic terms), gender ideology simultaneously means nothing and everything. This has allowed it to become the symbolic ‘glue’, uniting disparate groups in opposition—to feminism, transgender equality, the existence of intersex bodies, elimination of sex stereotyping, family-law reform, same-sex marriage, access to abortion and contraception, and comprehensive sexuality education.

The anti-gender movement is increasingly well resourced and co-ordinated, and more strategic and sophisticated than in the past. It has mobilised against gender- and sexuality-based human-rights advances at the national level, as well vis-à-vis regional and global mechanisms relating to rights, development and public health.

The anti-gender movement has even co-opted the language of human rights—positioning itself domestically as protecting free speech and religious freedom against ideological conformity and internationally as protecting national cultural integrity against imperialism. In this way, LGBT identities have come to stand in for something much bigger, being construed as a threat to the fabric of society itself.

Proceedings initiated

Last month, LGBT activist groups submitted a legal complaint to the European Commission, asserting that Poland’s ‘LGBT-ideology free zones’ and other discriminatory measures ran counter to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the directive on equal treatment in employment and occupation. In mid-July, the commission initiated infringement proceedings against Poland, because of local authorities having adopted ‘LGBT-ideology free zone’ resolutions (three have since reneged), and against aspects of Hungary’s disingenuous paedophilia law falling foul of its human-rights obligations.

Aside from violations relating to trade and the free flow of information, the commission asserted, the Hungarian provisions infringed rights to non-discrimination, human dignity, freedom of expression and information and respect for private life. The Polish authorities meanwhile had failed to respond adequately to its inquiry as to the meaning and impact of municipalities becoming ‘LGBT-ideology free zones’.

These are serious allegations, with far-reaching implications, and the commission is right to identify depredations of basic human rights and core European values. Both states enjoy the economic benefits attached to EU membership, yet under their current governments eschew the associated obligations.

Supporting the rights of, and equality for, LGBT people in these settings is thus more than defending members of a minority group, vital though that is. It is defending democracy and human rights for everyone.

Hungary,Orban,PiS,Poland,Russia,Putin,gay propaganda law,traditional values
Graeme Reid

Graeme Reid is LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch.

You are here: Home / Politics / Hungary’s path puts everyone’s rights in danger

Most Popular Posts

Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic

Most Recent Posts

transition,deindustrialisation,degradation,environment Europe’s industry and the ecological transitionCharlotte Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin
central and eastern Europe,unions,recognition Social dialogue in central and eastern EuropeMartin Myant
women soldiers,Ukraine Ukraine war: attitudes changing to women soldiersJennifer Mathers and Anna Kvit
military secrets,World Trade Organization,WTO,NATO,intellectual-property rights Military secrets and the World Trade OrganizationUgo Pagano
energy transition,Europe,wind and solar Europe’s energy transition starts to speed upDave Jones

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube