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Emboldened by President Trump, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary on Monday escalated his culture war against what he calls \u201cgender madness,\u201d after his governing party voted to amend the Constitution to mandate that all Hungarians are either male or female.<\/p>\n
The amendment proposed by the government was endorsed by Parliament, where the prime minister\u2019s Fidesz party has a large majority. It was the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Orban to rev up his conservative base and distract attention from economic problems and a surging opposition movement ahead of elections next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe international gender network must take its hands off our children,\u201d Mr. Orban said on Monday. \u201cNow, with the change in America, the winds have shifted in our favor,\u201d he added, referring to the re-election of Donald J. Trump as president.<\/p>\n
The amendment on gender included a clause that enshrined the protection of children\u2019s \u201cphysical, mental and moral development,\u201d reinforcing a law passed last month that banned gay pride events as a danger to the welfare of the very young.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The legislature also changed the Constitution to allow the government to strip dual nationals of their Hungarian citizenship if they are deemed dangerous to the nation. Some of Mr. Orban\u2019s most vocal critics are Hungarians who fled abroad and took a second citizenship in another country.<\/p>\n
The changes were part of what Mr. Orban said last month would be a \u201cspring cleaning\u201d to cleanse Hungarian politics of \u201cstink bugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The amendments mark the 15th time that Hungary has revised its Constitution since Mr. Orban became prime minister in 2010 and set about transforming his country into a self-declared \u201cilliberal democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberal critics have denounced the changes as a retreat from democracy and an assault on the core values of the European Union, of which Hungary has been a member since 2004. Mr. Orban\u2019s supporters, who include Mr. Trump and many prominent U.S. Republicans, however, see Hungary as a model of successful conservative politics in action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Orban has won four general elections in a row, ramping up culture war issues ahead of each ballot. A year before the last election, in 2022, his party pushed legislation through Parliament that outlawed the \u201cpopularizing\u201d of homosexuality<\/a>, as well as content that promoted a gender that diverged from the one assigned at birth. Fidesz won a landslide after demonizing its opponents as \u201cwoke globalists\u201d and \u201cwarmongers\u201d intent on sending Hungarian youth to fight Russia in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The party\u2019s credentials as a protector of children, however, were dented badly early last year, after it became known that the justice minister, Judit Varga, a leading Fidesz politician, had lobbied to pardon a man convicted of covering up pedophilia in a state-run children\u2019s home. The minister and two other prominent Fidesz figures, including Hungary\u2019s president, Katalin Novak, resigned amid a public uproar<\/a> over the pardon.<\/p>\n All three had been at the forefront of Mr. Orban\u2019s efforts to present Hungary as a bastion of family values, committed to fending off what Fidesz reviles as attacks on Christianity and Hungarian sovereignty through imported L.G.B.T.Q. \u201cpropaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n The pedophilia scandal also gave birth to what has since become the biggest political challenge to Mr. Orban in many years \u2014 an opposition movement led by Peter Magyar, a conservative former Fidesz loyalist and ex-husband of Ms. Varga. Mr. Magyar, who had held Fidesz-controlled diplomatic posts and senior positions in state agencies, broke with Mr. Orban over the pedophilia pardon scandal and traveled the country mobilizing opposition to the previously unassailable governing party.<\/p>\n Some opinion polls indicated that his upstart political party, Tisza, could defeat Fidesz in next year\u2019s election. Mr. Magyar\u2019s rise has been fueled in large part by widespread public anger at endemic corruption, Hungary\u2019s soaring inflation rate<\/a> \u2014 the highest in the European Union \u2014 and other economic ills.<\/p>\n Unlike several more established opposition leaders, who have organized street protests in recent weeks against the ban on Pride events, Mr. Magyar has stayed clear of the issue, frustrating Fidesz\u2019s effort to portray him as an enemy of Hungarian values. But his stand has also angered Hungarian leftists, who accuse him of putting political calculation ahead of principles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n