Lighting the arena in rainbow colors would be a sign of freedom for our society, so I will be very supportive of Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, president of the Christian Social Union (CSU), on Monday when asked what he thought of the German and Hungarian national teams for the European Championship match on Wednesday. At the Allianz Arena in Munich.
The announcement by the head of a former Fides ally CSU has a serious political message. The petition, backed by more than 50,000 people, to light a rainbow in the Bavarian arena came after the pro-government majority in the Hungarian parliament voted last week, with the support of Jobbik, to pass a law combining pedophilia and homosexuality. The petition was supported by all six factions of the Munich City Council and, in the name of tolerance and equality, asked UEFA to allow the arena to be illuminated in rainbow colors during the match on Wednesday night. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reacted harshly to the Munich proposal after a meeting of European Council foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. Challenging the German collective memory, likely referring to the country’s Nazi past and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the minister said historical experience shows that the mixture of sport and politics is bad, and if anyone is doing it, the Germans “certainly do exactly that.” they know.” Then he repeated: “It’s bad to confuse sports and politics.” The last statement is also interesting because it was Tamas Mincer, one of Szijjártó’s state ministers, who was whipping opposition leaders in the last days of the performance of the Hungarian football team, and in one of his posts he wrote that the national team could play against a successful vaccination programme. The Bavarian-Hungarian rainbow dispute is also hot because due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, UEFA may move the European Championship final to a place other than originally planned, with Munich and Budapest among the possible venues.
As we wrote last week, the German federal government has been highly critical of Hungarian law in the past, for example, Michael Roth, Germany’s foreign minister for European affairs, wrote to our newspaper, “I am very concerned about the stigmatization of LGBT people” in Hungary. Banning homosexuality, transgenderism, and any positive contextual presentation of a gender change can easily make children feel that they have something wrong, and this can seriously jeopardize their mental health. After protesters at Alexander Palace last week asked the head of state not to sign the disputed law and there was growing international outrage, we contacted the President’s office to see if Janos Ader would sign the law or return it. To Parliament, perhaps rule rule. He asks the Constitutional Court, but we didn’t get a response until we closed.
An American after British fears
“We are concerned about actions that discriminate against the LGBT+ community contained in a law passed by the Hungarian Parliament last week. The UK stands up for the rights of the LGBT+ community around the world and we stand in solidarity with LGBT+ people in Hungary,” wrote Wendy Morton, Secretary of State for Neighborhood Affairs European and Americas at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in a Twitter post. Last Monday, he said it was the duty of governments to promote freedom of expression and protect human rights, including the rights of the LGBT community.” — KA wrote
