BUDAPEST, Hungary, December 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The Hungarian Parliament has amended the country’s constitution to define marriage as being between a man and woman, and also passed a law effectively banning adoption by same-sex couples.
Under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party, the amendment was passed yesterday in the National Assembly with 134 MPs voting in favor, 45 voting against, and 5 abstaining. The text is an amendment to the Hungarian Fundamental Law, and greatly strengthens the protections afforded to families.
The newly amended text reads: “Hungary protects the institution of marriage as the association between a man and a woman and the family as the basis for the survival of the nation. The foundation of the family is marriage and the parent-child relationship. The mother is a woman, the father is a man.”
Reports note that with the amendment, Hungary becomes the “first country in the European Union to define the concept of family at the constitutional level and to ensure the undisturbed development of children.”
Another passage included in the change is one which is to be inserted in the section on children, and stipulates the importance of Christianity in the child’s upbringing. The text reads: “Every child has the right to such protection and care as is necessary for his or her physical, mental and moral development. Hungary protects the right of children to self-identity according to their sex at birth and provides an upbringing in accordance with the values based on Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”
Explaining the reason behind the changes, the government mentioned that “new ideological processes in the West” necessitated the changes in order to “protect the child from possible ideological or biological interference.”
Regarding the new text, the legislator stated in the Justification of the bill, that:
The Fundamental Law of Hungary is a living framework that expresses the will of the nation, the form in which we want to live. However, the ‘modern’ set of ideas that make all traditional values, including the two sexes, relative, is a growing concern. The constant threat to the natural laws of the forms and content of human communities, to the concepts arising from the order of Creation that harmonize with them and ensure the survival of communities, and, in some cases, the attempt to formulate them with a content contrary to the original, raises doubts as to whether the interests, rights and well-being of future generations can be protected along the lines of the values of the Fundamental Law. The legislator must therefore clearly set out the basic guarantees for the protection of children and the rights of future generations…
Adoption of children by same-sex couples ruled out
In addition to these constitutional changes, the Assembly also passed a bill which effectively excludes same-sex couples from adopting children. Except in rare circumstances, the new law limits adoption only to married couples, with particular exceptions being occasionally made for family members or single people. Since same-sex “marriage” is banned under the Hungarian Constitution, married couples can only refer to couples of the opposite sex, thus ruling out same-sex couples adopting.
Justice Minister Judit Varga highlighted the main meaning of the bill: “the main rule is that only married couples can adopt a child, that is, a man and a woman who are married.”
The new bill comes in addition to a law passed in May of this year, by which birth, marriage and death certificates must give a person’s actual sex, or “birth sex,” instead of “gender identity.”
“Given that the complete change of the biological sex is not possible, it is necessary to state in law that there is no possibility to change it in the registry of births, marriages and deaths, either,” reads an explanation accompanying the provision.
As part of Hungary’s other pro-family rulings, married couples can apply for a loan of 10 million-forint, worth about $34,000 USD, which would not have to be repaid if they have three children. Prime Minister Orbán’s government is strongly committed to advancing pro-family policies, and he has said in the past that “Christianity is Europe's last hope”. Orbán has not been afraid to stand-up to anti-life globalists such as George Soros, and at a conservative conference in Rome this year, stated that “the universal Catholic approach” is the only one “which appreciates and accepts national sovereignty.”
Left wing and LBGT activists have reacted strongly both to the new constitutional amendment and the new law on adoption. LGBT website, Washington Blade, dubbed the changes “the latest in a series of attacks against LGBTQ Hungarians.”
David Vig, director of Amnesty Hungary, spoke similarly,calling the laws “discriminatory, homophobic and transphobic” and an “attack” on “LGBTQ people.” Masen Davis, Executive Director at Transgender Europe, went further and issued a call to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “to address the rights of LGBT parents.”
Meanwhile Hungarian Journalist, Peter Heltai, welcomed the news, saying “This is how a postmodern rebellion looks like, I guess?”