In 2015, Orbán was grateful to the gay community, but now his government plans to ban Pride

It became certain at Thursday's government briefing that as of this year, holding the Pride Parade will no longer be allowed in its previous form in Hungary. Speaking to the media, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office Gergely Gulyás said that based on "common sense" and in the interest of protecting those with families, he believes it is right to ban the event, which aims to raise awareness about the rights of gays and sexual minorities.

Gulyás' words are in sharp contrast with his previous statement, because in 2014, when speaking about Pride, he said that "Hungary's legislation on the right of assembly is completely clear. Regardless of the values represented, the right to assembly and constitutional protection is granted to events that fall under the jurisdiction of the law." But he is not the only one whose views have changed dramatically in the past decade:

In 2015, Viktor Orbán, who called for the banning of Pride a few days ago, said that he was grateful to the gay community and that it would be wrong for the government to tighten legislation in this area.

On the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, the original Index asked the Prime Minister in Debrecen in 2014 what message he would send to homophobes and what could be done so that gay couples could walk down the streets of Hungary holding hands without fear. In his reply, the Prime Minister advised anyone taking a stand on the issue to do so with due circumspection, and stressed that Hungary represents conservative values but is a "tolerant country".

Tolerance, he said, means being patient and being able to coexist, but does not mean judging heterosexual and homosexual relationships as the same. However, he said that he was "grateful to the Hungarian homosexual community for not engaging in the provocative behaviour that many European countries have to deal with, which has the opposite effect to the one they would otherwise like to achieve". Orbán also said that "in Hungary, people who lead non-traditional lifestyles are safe, they are given the respect that they deserve in terms of human dignity". The Prime Minister saved his main point for the end, when he said:

“... this is how we can live together. If we move this system in either direction, whether we come up with stronger regulations or the homosexual community adopts a more provocative attitude, I think the current peaceful, calm and balanced state of affairs will break down. And that is in nobody's interest.”

A decade has passed since then, and in this time, the government has started to take action against gender and sexual minorities in Hungary, first in its rhetoric and then with specific legislative measures. The most recent and perhaps most symbolic milestone in this process will be the banning of the currently known version of Pride in 2025. The government's communication suggests that Fidesz feels that the LGBTQ community has by now "earned" a tougher approach to their "defiant behaviour", but it is a curious question why Budapest Pride is falling victim to the anti-gay campaign now, given that the event has existed in a largely unchanged format since 1997.

At the time of the Prime Minister's 2015 statement, Pride was no less 'provocative' than it is today, when thousands of heterosexual families with young children join the parade to party with sexual minorities protesting for equality. If Viktor Orbán thought that this was acceptable back then, and that the perfect, peaceful equilibrium was perfectly okay with Pride in the picture, then the question is why it is now that the government has reached the point where Viktor Orbán, János Lázár and Gergely Gulyás are in complete agreement that it should be banned.

The answer is perhaps to be found in another sentence of the government briefing, as the Minister of the Prime Minister's Office also revealed that during Donald Trump's previous term, many people from US Democratic circles retained their positions, so "there was less room for manoeuvre". Thus it seems that the Hungarian government, which prides itself on its sovereignty, makes decisions on issues like this based on who is in government and who holds important positions on the other side of the Atlantic.