As War Rages in Neighboring Country, Orbán Rails Against “Gender Madness”

“Gender madness must be stopped!” exclaimed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Eger on Wednesday, where he urged listeners to reject the questions on the government-initiated child protection referendum and stumped for the local Fidesz-KDNP candidate, Gábor Pajtók.

Orbán said that if we vote “no” on all four questions on the referendum, then the issue will have been settled by the people for good.

The mother is a woman, the father is a man, and leave our children alone!

-the Prime Minister told the assembled group.

At the stake in the referendum, according to Orbán, is “whether we maintain our sanity.” Hungary is a free country, and adults can decide how they want to live, he told the crowd.

We don’t want to get involved in that. But with children, that’s a red line.

-Orbán defiantly stated. The referendum, he felt, must be held to make it clear that “this ridiculousness” of trends that come from abroad should not be allowed into Hungarian schools.

If children are exposed to influences at school that make it harder for parents to do their job, then the school is engaged in unauthorized activity, said Orbán.

What we expect from teachers, what we expect from schools, is not to re-educate our children. We have never given the right to anyone else to determine for us when and how to confront our children with these very difficult life questions.

-he emphasized, adding that these are the responsibility of the parents, and that we have to protect this right if we don’t want to lose it.

In January, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, expressed concerns that “the proposed referendum will entrench stereotypes, prejudice and hate against LGBTI people and therefore have a strong negative impact on their rights, safety and well-being, by putting questions to popular vote that are ambiguous and misleading.”

A coalition of 10 civil rights organizations in Hungary put out a statement that the four questions on the referendum incite hatred by marginalizing those with non-conforming sexual and gender identities.

They are urging voters to invalidate their referendum ballots by marking both “yes” and “no” on all four questions.

[444][Photo: Viktor Orbán / Facebook]