Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of President Donald Trump, celebrated the country’s constitutional amendment prohibiting public events with LGBT activity.
The amendment protects children’s rights to moral, physical, and spiritual development, the Associated Press reports. Protecting these rights includes shielding those younger than eighteen from the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality.
The constitutional amendment, which passed along party lines in a 140-21 vote, further recognizes the biological reality of two sexes, male and female.
“Hungary’s constitutional amendment is now law,” Orbán wrote on X. “We’re protecting children’s development, affirming that a person is born either male or female, and standing firm against drugs and foreign interference. In Hungary, common sense matters.”
Ahead of the vote, Orbán’s spokesman Zoltán Kovács said the “heart” of the amendment was its protections for children’s rights.
“At the heart of the amendment is the explicit prioritization of children’s rights. A newly added provision states that ‘every child has the right to the protection and care necessary for their proper physical, intellectual, and moral development,’ and that this right supersedes all other fundamental rights, except the right to life,” he explained on X.
Discussing the amendment’s recognition of two sexes, Kovács said the matter “is not an attack on individual self-expression, but a clarification that legal norms are based on biological reality—an approach intended to ensure coherence in state administration and social organization.”
In February, Orbán prohibited the Budapest Pride Parade from taking place in public spaces, requiring organizers to hold the event in a closed venue. Gergely Gulyás, Orbán’s chief of staff, stated that the decision was made to ensure child safety, emphasizing that a Pride event held in a controlled indoor environment does not pose the same concerns.
