Steven N.
The National Media and Communications Authority’s Media Council, composed only of members from ruling party Fidesz, ruled this week that a public service announcement by TV station RTL Klub and the Background Society featuring LGBTQ “rainbow families” had violated the law. The Media Council stated that the “Family is Family” PSA was broadcast on RTL Klub 11 times in December 2020 at an inappropriate time.
Although the Fidesz-dominated board acknowledges that “such announcements do not need to have an age-restriction classification,” they can only be shown at a time of day “when, if classified according to their content, it would be appropriate for them [to be shown],” in accordance with Hungary’s current rating system.
Because it is hard for children to interpret reconciling child raising as done by the same-sex couples in the advertisement together with [the concept of] family, these may only be broadcast between 9:00pm and 5:00am, while the channel showed them between the times of 6:00am and 8:00pm.
-wrote the Council in its statement on the issue.
[UPDATE: RTL is fighting the decision]
The offending five-minute PSA is here, with English subtitles:
Last summer, the Hungarian Parliament passed amendments to a law that banned children under 18 from accessing advertisements that “depict sexuality for its own purposes, or promote and display self-identification that deviates from one’s birth gender, the changing of genders, or homosexuality.”
Media Council Approves of Calling LGBTQ Activitists “Terrorists”
In a separate decision, the Media Council determined that Catholic priest Zoltán Osztie’s claim that “people in the LGBTQ lobby” were “terrorists” was neither marginalizing nor hateful.
The priest was quoted in Vasarnap.hu, the media outlet for the Christian Democratic (KDNP) party, saying that “people in the LGBTQ lobby are terrorists. They inflict violence on children.”
An NGO subsequently lodged a complaint over the statement, but Hungary’s media authority has now determined that:
In line with the official position and teaching of the Catholic Church, the priest expressed strong criticism opposing activists who promote LGBTQ ideology, but his statement was neither marginalizing nor hateful. The board affirms that the criticism expressed by the parish priest is considered as a political opinion, and thus among statements that are the most protected by freedom of speech. Furthermore, the freedom of expresion also covers statements that are contrary to the spirit and mindset of individual communities. On this basis, the board is not inititating a procedure against the media provider.
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