On Saturday, a parade of the LGBTQ community and their supporters was held in the capital as part of the Budapest Pride series of events.
The march waving rainbow flags started from Podmaniczky Street on the route Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street, Andrássy Street, Hősök Square to Városliget, to the stage set up in the green area in front of Vajdahunyad Castle, where the poet and translator Orsolya Karafiáth called it boring, that it was always about struggle, hurt and exclusion need to talk. He criticized the government, which does everything to ensure that homophobic voices are heard.
In the march, which started with the motto "Take back your future", music was played by five trucks, and the participants danced on the platform of the trucks and in the crowd. In addition to being unintelligible in the case of a minority that does not wish to give birth to its own offspring, the motto cannot even be called original; the organizers took it from the Brexit campaign, but unfortunately they did not recognize that the message of the motto is not functional in the case of the LGBT community.
The Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party participated in the demonstration with a separate vehicle. The rainbow-colored molino of the Democratic Coalition also appeared in the march.
Employees of the Hungarian foreign missions of the countries supporting the demonstration marched behind a molino with the inscription "Diplomats for pride". The US Ambassador to Budapest David Pressmann and Mayor Gergely Karácsony were also with the demonstrators.
The law enforcement officers did not cordon off the march route this time either. Some counter-protesters appeared at Dózsa György út, holding up banners reading "Crime cannot be a matter of pride", "Stop LGBTQ pedophilia" and "Marriage in Hungary is an alliance of 1 man and 1 woman, calm down".
From the marchers, who came from Andrássy út to Hősök Square and held up their messages written on the molinos, to CitzenGO, which held the announced counter-demonstration. One of the messages of the international conservative lobby organization founded in Madrid was that "The silent majority is proud of its country" . And on the larger molino it was written: "We protect our children from LGBTQ sensitization and brainwashing".
CitizenGO's flash action held as a protest against the 29th Budapest Pride parade on Dózsa György út on June 22, 2024. MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry
Béla Teleki, the program manager of CitizenGo, told MTI that they came to express that the silent majority in Hungary are proud of their country and their families. As he put it, they want to prevent the LGBTQ ideology from creeping into families and disrupting society.
He explained: they hope that their presence and messages will have an impact on the marchers, and also that they represent not only their organization but also Hungarian society to the outside world. He specifically addressed the fact that with their banners, they specifically draw attention to child protection against Pride's radical demands, according to which the Child Protection Act must be abolished and the relevant part of the Basic Law rewritten. The CitizenGo activist stressed that "children must be protected from LGBTQ ideology" .
The participants of the Budapest Pride parade could listen to the performances of musicians and the speeches of activists on the stage set up at Vajdahunyad Castle.
MTI/Civilek.Info
Featured image: David Pressman, Ambassador of the United States to Budapest (b) and Mayor Gergely Karácsony (j2) among the participants of the 29th Budapest Pride on Andrássy út on June 22, 2024. MTI/Robert Hegedüs
