Europe News

Hungarian liberals to push for same-sex marriage

Sep 20, 2007, 16:45 GMT

Budapest - Hungary's liberal junior coalition party the Alliance of Free Democrats on Thursday said it had submitted an amendment to the law on family rights that would legalize same sex marriage.

'We trust that the governing coalition ... will uniformly support this proposal,' Peter Gusztos, the deputy leader of the Liberals' parliamentary caucus, said.

The party wishes to change the text of the law book to read that marriage is allowed between 'two adult persons' instead of an 'adult man and woman.'

Gusztos said it was a paradoxical situation that all parties had signed an anti-discrimination law in the previous parliamentary cycle while discrimination still existed in many areas.

Support would be needed from the senior coalition member the Hungarian Socialist Party in order to pass the law and it was not immediately clear whether this would be forthcoming.

Socialist MP Timea Muller Szabone told MTI news agency that while the Socialists wished to see equal rights for gay people, whether that would mean same sex marriage was 'one of society's great debates.'

Small conservative opposition party the Christian Democrats (KDNP) said that it would not support the amendment, saying it believed marriage should only be allowed between a man and a woman.

While Hungary's gay community enjoys relative freedom compared to those in other regional countries such as Poland, there have been several recent examples of homophobia.

Right-wingers disrupted a gay pride parade during the summer, throwing eggs and other objects, and a state secretary who publicly disclosed his homosexuality a few months ago was mocked by a right- wing radio station.

Lanchid Radio published a picture of Gabor Szetey standing outside Auschwitz concentration camp wearing a pink triangle.

The picture was quickly removed and two staff editors - one of them a local government representative for the main right-of-centre opposition party Fidesz - were fired.