Ildiko Kovalcsik, one of the hosts of the event that followed the march, said the parade showed that there was "a unity that is about love, peace, equality and holding hands".

Singer Kati Wolf said she stood in solidarity with the LGBTQ community and every minority because "love belongs to everyone".



Kristof Steiner, the other host, said the event was "the biggest Budapest Pride of all time".

Hella Zsirka, a trans rights activist and the operative manager of the Hatter Society, said talented people were leaving Hungary "because they can’t stand all the hate". "We are people … they can’t just do whatever they want with us, they can’t drive us away from our own country because we are at home here, too," Zsirka said.



Nikoletta Bogadi of the Living Library for Human Rights and the Parents for LGBTQ+ People NGOs said it was not Pride that children needed to be protected from, but exclusionary thinking.
 

Nicolae Stefanuta, the vice-president of the European Parliament, told participants in Hungarian that love was not a crime, but something that needed to be protected and cherished, adding that love was stronger than hate.



Actress Patricia Kovacs said one of the most important social issues was that "none of us are truly free as long as there are those who are stripped of their rights, and none of us are truly equal as long as there are those who are less equal."

The event’s supporters included the opposition Democratic Coalition, the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party, the Political Capital think-tank and the Tanitanek (I Want To Teach) Movement.

Gulyas: ‘Today the entire opposition united with Pride’

"Today, the entirety of the opposition united with Pride," the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Facebook on Saturday.

Gergely Gulyas said the European Commission president had made it clear multiple times recently that that Pride march had to go ahead in Budapest as well, "so it’s no wonder that this became the most important thing for the city's leadership".

"It’s as if this was Budapest’s biggest problem," Gulyas said. "Traffic jams, trash, bankruptcy don’t even matter anymore; when it comes to Pride, nothing is too expensive."

Gulyas said today was further proof that "for the opposition, Pride is more important than the capital, and Brussels is more important than Hungary."

Meanwhile, Our Homeland to file report against police over ‘violation of pro-normality forces’ right to assembly’



Though the Our Homeland Movement succeeded in preventing "the LGBTQP propaganda parade" from crossing Liberty Bridge, the police "unlawfully blocked" a similar demonstration by the party, Our Homeland’s deputy leader said on Saturday, adding that they will file a report against the police with the prosecutor’s office.

In a statement, Elod Novak noted that Our Homeland had lawfully announced an assembly to be held on the St. Gellert embankment, but the police had not allowed the party’s activists on to Liberty Bridge because of the Budapest Pride march.

"Today it was only the pro-normality forces who had their right to assembly violated," Novak said, adding that Our Homeland had blocked off Liberty Bridge from the "LGBTQP propaganda parade" with passive resistance and without violence.

He said they would have expected the police to block the "banned procession", but "in the end the police only took action against those like us."

He said it was a "symbolic success" that the "deviants" had been prevented from marching along Andrassy Avenue and crossing Liberty Bridge because their movement had not backed down "from the world’s strongest lobby groups".

Novak accused ruling Fidesz of having "given up the protection of normality", saying the party "are making fools of themselves by passing a law that they don’t enforce". "Today the government’s conservative and child protection policy collapsed for good," he added.

"The government bowed to the homosexual lobby, and the Tisza Party has also backed down and joined the LGBTQP grand coalition," he said.
 

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881. While MTI articles are usually factual, some may contain political bias, and readers should be aware that such content does not reflect the position of XpatLoop, which is neutral and independent.

Since the goal of XpatLoop is to keep readers well briefed, right across the spectrum of opinions, MTI items are shared to ensure readers are aware of all narratives within the local media.

XpatLoop believes in empowering readers to form their own views through complete and comprehensive coverage. To facilitate this XpatLoop has a balanced range of news partners, as you can see when you surf around XpatLoop.com

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