Hungary's anti-LGBTQ+ legislation violates EU law, court finds

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian legislation banning the availability of LGBTQ+ content to minors violates European Union law and breaches a foundational treaty guaranteeing respect for human rights and equality, the bloc’s court ruled Tuesday.

The European Court of Justice said that Hungary's legislation, adopted in 2021 by the nationalist-populist government of outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, “stigmatizes and marginalizes" LGBTQ+ persons, and fails to uphold the EU's prohibition of discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation.

Hungary’s law, which was widely criticized by human rights groups, prohibited the display of content to minors that depicts homosexuality or gender change, while also providing harsher penalties for crimes of pedophilia.

The government argued its policies, including a more recent law and constitutional amendment that effectively banned the popular Budapest Pride event, sought to protect children from what it calls “sexual propaganda.”

But critics of the legislation have compared it to Russia’s gay propaganda law of 2013, and say it conflates homosexuality with pedophilia. Last year, over 100,000 people took part in a Budapest Pride march in defiance of the government's ban.

In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based court found that, for the first time in an action brought against one of the EU's 27 member states, Hungary had violated Article 2 of the bloc's foundational treaty, which defines “the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”

It also found that the law breached rules relating to services in the EU's internal market, as well as data protection laws.

Orbán's government was defeated in a landslide election on April 12 by the center-right Tisza party and its leader, Péter Magyar, bringing an end to Orbán's 16 years in power.

Magyar's government is expected to take office in mid-May, and has pledged to pursue a more constructive approach to its relationship with the EU.

During his election campaign, Magyar was cautious about engaging in Orbán's culture-war debate over LGBTQ+ rights. But in his April 12 victory speech, he said Hungary would become a country “where no one is stigmatized for loving someone differently than the majority.”