The 20th Budapest Pride March

The right of sexual minorities are recognised on all sides, except right-wing extremists, but commentators disagree on whether the annual LGBT march through Budapest serves tolerance and understanding.

On Index, left-wing social activist Márton Gulyás finds it absurd that many thousand people should have been cordoned off from the City in order to prevent a few dozen right-wing extremists attacking them. He suggests that those offenders should have been simply taken into custody by police

In Népszabadság, Szabolcs Kerék-Bárczy  thinks it would be only too natural to legalise same sex marriage in Hungary. Marriages are in fact ”islands of stability,” in a society which needs stability first and foremost.

In an open letter to Pride March participants on Jobbegyenes, a gay man signing his name with the initials (F.M.) argues that gays should not be ashamed of their identity but should not exhibit it in public in a provocative way. He thinks the annual marches are detrimental to the interests of gay people because the majority of the population finds them irritating.

In Magyar Nemzet, Zoltán Veczán accuses gay activists of intolerance, because they consider anyone who does not agree with them an enemy. He suggests them toreplace their rainbow coloured banners with black and white ones to better express their intolerant nature.

Tags: far-right, homophobia