BUDAPEST, Hungary (LifeSiteNews) — Authorities in Hungary have fired the director of the National Museum after he failed to adequately comply with a ban on minors visiting an exhibit that included pro-LGBT images.
During the first week of November, Hungary’s minister of culture announced that László Simon was dismissed for violating a 2021 law that prohibits the “display and promotion of homosexuality” to children under 18 years of age.
The Budapest-based museum was welcoming the World Press Photo organization, a Dutch-based nonprofit that promotes photojournalism.
At this year’s exhibit, five photos titled “Home for the Golden Gays” featured elderly “LGBTQ+ people” who have lived together in the Philippines for decades dressed in opposite-sex clothing.
Dóra Dúró is a pro-life, pro-family member of the Hungarian parliament who has held office since 2010. A mother of four young children who serves as the deputy leader of the nationalist Our Homeland party, Dúró, 36, decried the exhibit as “harmful” not only for children but adults as well.
She launched a government inquiry as to whether it violated the Child Protection Act of 2021. The Act, which was passed 157-1, bans homosexual and gender propaganda for minors. More than a dozen European Union countries have filed a lawsuit against the measure.
János Csák announced Simon’s firing on Monday, November 6. Csák serves as Hungary’s minister of culture. Judit Hammerstein, former press chief for Hungary’s current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from 1998–2002, has since been named acting director of the museum.
Simon said he could not legally enforce the ban, stating that the museum did not have the right to ask for identification cards. Interestingly enough, he himself voted for the Child Protection Act. He previously served as a member of parliament for Orbán’s Fidesz party and was hired as the museum’s director in August 2021.
World Press Photo executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury called the situation “mind-boggling.”
Dúró, a Catholic, gained international media attention in September 2020 when she called a pro-LGBT children’s book “homosexual propaganda” during a press conference where she proceeded to rip it to pieces.