The largest Hungarian commercial television network, RTL Klub withdrew all the singers of its “X-Factor” talent contest from a Christmas event for poor children organized by the International Children’s Safety Service, after the ICSS announced that Tünde Krasznai, one of the programme’s winners, was not to sing at the event because “conservative, religious participants, among them teachers and ecclesiastical personalities” would find her presence inappropriate.

ICSS’s founder and director said it was his decision alone and warned that the hype around it will victimize the singer herself. There are several former and active Hungarian politicians among the founders of ICSS, from former Free Democrats Gábor Demszky and Gábor Fodor to Fidesz strongman László Kövér, the incumbent president of the organization. Kövér is also the host of the event in his capacity as House Speaker, as the ICSS Christmas celebration traditionally takes place in Parliament Building.

HVG’s Tamás Gomperz suggests that László Kövér clearly finds Pope Francis’s moral judgement wanting. Why is the appearance of a former adult video actress in Parliament more of an abomination than the presence of those who create the market for porn by watching it and paying for it, he asks, claiming that some of the “conservative, religious participants, among them teachers and ecclesiastical personalities” who are to be protected from Tünde Krasznai are no doubt also among the consumers of pornography.

He suspects that the very same conservative audience is much less bothered by Fidesz policies, which he claims favour the rich and penalize the poor. In an acidic concluding remark, Gomperz accuses Fidesz politicians in general of corruption: he suggests that their idea of character development is the opposite of what Pope Francis believes in: it leads one from youthful innocence to adult corruption.

In Népszabadság, Róbert Friss says Krasznai’s problem is her talent. X-Faktor is all about hard work – and why would a hard-working, talented singer be a dangerous role model for disadvantaged children, he asks. The adult film industry is not illegal in Hungary, after all. And why should her presence be inappropriate at a Christian holiday, he continues, if Mary Magdalene is a revered figure in the Gospels? While RTL Klub clearly profits from the continuing scandal, it is the children who are deprived of inspiring role-models, for “amidst all the hypocrisy around her case” the message is that Tünde Krasznai should have stayed where she came from.

Source: BudaPost

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