Back in December we learned that Hungary had approved a draft version of a new constitution that outlaws same-sex marriage. Today lawmakers there officially adopted that constitution. The 2009 law granting same-sex couples some rights after registering their partnerships remains in effect. International Viewpoint predicts that the EU will do little about Hungary's newly official ban.
The European commission scarcely dares to take action when member states invoke religious freedom to disregard EU-fundamental rights. For example, in the case of Lithuania, where a law was passed that bans the “promotion of homosexuality," effectively rendering gay people invisible. The controversial Hungarian media law also includes a paragraph of this type, which states that the media must show respect for marriage and the institution of family, whereby the government aims to constitutionally enshrine the definition of marriage as being between a man and woman. The new Hungarian media supervisor has already qualified public expressions of homosexuality as in conflict with these standards, and therefore potentially punishable under the new law. Discrimination of this type is clearly in conflict with the ban on discrimination in the EU treaties.RELATED: Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in January.
