More than a dozen European Union countries have joined a legal case against Hungary to protest the passage of its 2021 "Child Protection Law," which would prevent children from being sexualized.
Specifically, the law would ban content that "promotes or portrays" what it refers to as "divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality" to minors, according to a press release from the European Commission, the governing body that brought forth the legal proceedings.
Several countries including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Spain and Sweden have also applied to join the case against Hungary, according to Politico. The countries largely see the law as discriminatory and anti-LGBTQ.
A spokesperson for the European Commission told Euronews the Hungarian law "violates EU law, fundamental rights and EU values. We referred Hungary to the [European Court of Justice] and it is now up to the Court to rule on the case."
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Political Director, Balazs Orban, spoke out against the legal proceedings, saying Hungarians voted to say no to "gender propaganda."
"In 2021 when we in Hungary started to realize that something is coming. It's like a storm which is coming. Woke ideology or LGBTQ propaganda is arriving to Hungary, to schools through media and through NGOs. And, you know, you can imagine how a grassroots, normal Hungarian citizen reacted to that," he said Wednesday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "We don't have the word ‘woke’ in Hungarian. People were asking, what are you talking about? ‘Woke?’ Is that the French magazine or what? But then they started to realize that this is you know, this is something serious."
Orban added that nearly 4 million Hungarians voted in favor of the law and sent a clear message that they wanted to "ban transgenderism and LGBTQ propaganda for minors." He said the EU countries’ efforts to protest the bill is a "legal persecution" of Hungary.
"The Brazilian Deep State, it's very similar to the DC one. It started a legal persecution against Hungary, which is backed by many Western European countries. Eastern European countries think differently, but there is an ongoing, really political and legal cold war," he told host Tucker Carlson.
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Orban said he would not back down and that the Hungarian people are "behind us." "This is their expectation. You know, my job is not to be popular among the Brazilian elites. But to represent the interests of my people in Brussels. This is why we have no other chance than just to take the battle," he explained.
"This is this what Hungarians want. It's out of [the] question. And if the media, the state, the big powers are against you, your only backing is the support of the people. We are very grateful for that. And we have to serve them."