John Downing: Budapest mayor and prime minister Viktor Orban face off over Pride parade
For 30 years, Budapest's Pride march has asserted and celebrated the rights of gay, bisexual and transgender people, but the parade scheduled for today has been banned by the Hungarian government, though it is supported by the city's mayor.
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The Journal
2 hours ago
- The Journal
From less than a dozen marchers to tens of thousands: A history of Dublin Pride
Lauren Boland FIFTY-ONE YEARS AGO, on a mild, dry day in late June, a small group of less than a dozen people marched through Dublin to protest outside the British embassy. It was 1974 – the year the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association was founded, the year of the UVF's Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the year that Transition Year was first introduced to secondary schools – and the ten activists who took to the streets on the 27th of June were fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. At the time, same-sex relations were criminalised under the law, and they had been so since the 1800s under legislation that the British state imposed on Ireland which the fledgling Irish State had never repealed. The group of activists – which included David Norris, who went on to be Ireland's longest-serving senator – gathered outside the embassy to demonstrate against the laws that Britain had introduced and which were still criminalising homosexuality in Ireland more than a century later. 'That was really the beginning of what was then called the gay rights movement in Ireland,' said historian Mary McAuliffe. Today, in many countries around the world, June marks the festival of Pride – an event which is both political, in its calls for LGBTQ+ equality, and personal, in the opportunity that it gives members of the community to come together and celebrate their identities in the face of discrimination and oppression. Pride events like parades are held in many towns across Ireland throughout the summer, with the largest each year taking place in Dublin at the end of June. It's attended by tens of thousands of people – a long way from the group of just ten activists calling for decriminalisation outside the British embassy in 1974. The start of a movement The celebration of Pride in Ireland today has its roots in the boots-on-the-ground activism of the 1970s and 1980s. '1974 saw the foundation of the sexual liberation movement in Ireland. Second-wave feminism had begun, and then sexual liberation, and the idea of self-determined sexuality and decriminalisation of homosexuality,' McAuliffe, a lecturer at University College Dublin specialising in the history of Irish women and gender, told The Journal . 'There were a whole load of issues that people were beginning to galvanise around and organise around.' One of those organisers was Tonie Walsh, an activist who has been at the helm of projects and organisations over the years like the National LGBT Federation, the Hirchfeld Centre – an LGBTQ+ community space in Temple Bar in the 1980s – and the Irish Queer Archive. It was in 1979 that the first formal week-long event then known as Gay Pride was organised by the National LGBT Federation. In Ireland, there was no political or commercial appetite in the 1970s to sponsor or support events linked to LGBTQ+ people. The community had to have its own back. 'The Hirschfeld Centre was an example of a community resource that provided the people and the ideas and, crucially, the money needed to to roll out a full week festival of talks and pop up theater and live discos and live panel discussions, and all the other things that would happen during during Pride.' (The Centre burned down in 1987.) Declan Flynn In 1982, a 31-year-old gay man named Declan Flynn was brutally attacked in Fairview Park in Dublin and died from his injuries. A group of teenagers and young men between the ages of 14 and 19 saw him receiving a kiss on the cheek from another man while he was walking home through the park. They attacked him, stole the £4 that was in his pocket, and left him to die. The group were found guilty of manslaughter but were let away with suspended sentences and served no time in prison. 'That was a horrendous murder and the teenage boys who were charged with his murder were more or less just slapped on the wrist by the judge, and so it seemed like gay lives, queer lives, were seen as lesser, as not having the same value,' McAuliffe said. It sparked a protest march to Fairview Park in March of 1983 and a Pride parade that June, which went from St Stephen's Green to the GPO on O'Connell Street. 'It's impossible to forget the '83 March. There was only about 150 of us. I was one of the speakers, along with Jodie Crone had come out on The Late Late Show three years beforehand,' Walsh recalled. 'We redesignated the GPO as the 'Gay Persons Organisation'. It was a great day, because it was the first time it felt like we were reclaiming the streets, particularly in the light of homophobic violence and anti-women violence that was happening at the time in Ireland,' he said. But the 1980s were a difficult time to organise Pride marches. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community were not safe enough or comfortable enough to come out publicly. There were few resources at organisers' disposal. And, most hauntingly, the community was battling on another frontline at the same time: AIDS. 'The organisation that was necessary to run something as enormous as a parade just wasn't there because people's focus shifted towards the AIDS pandemic,' Walsh said. 'When you look back at the early history of Pride, what you see is a small group of people trying to do everything themselves. This was in a culture where there was no state funding of any sort, and corporate funding was didn't really exist, not to the extent needed,' he said. 'A week of events and running a parade demanded huge amounts of labour and also huge amounts of money, and both of these things were in short supply, particularly during the AIDS pandemic.' For much of the decade, there 'wasn't enough people to warrant doing a march or parade – so few people were publicly out'. 'The high points of Pride then was a picnic in Merrion Square, a balloon release on St Stephen's Green, a leaflet drop around all the major shopping precincts explaining the history of the Stonewall Riots and giving people a shorthand into the history of LGBT civil rights on the island of Ireland and of Ireland,' Walsh described. The 1988 Pride march. Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland The fight for decriminalisation At the same time as Pride was developing, there was a campaign spearheaded by David Norris to push the government to decriminalise same-sex relations. Norris brought the Irish government to the European Commission of Human Rights and then the European Court of Human Rights, argued that the criminalisation law violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The government actively fought to preserve the law. State papers from the 70s and 80s that were released to the National Archives in 2023, examined by The Journal , show the extent of homophobic attitudes embedded in the civil service at the time, like fearing decriminalisation would lead to 'public displays of homosexual relationships' and considering whether to leverage the AIDS crisis to defend keeping the law in place . Despite the State's extensive defence efforts, Norris won his case before the European Court of Human Rights and the government passed legislation that decriminalised homosexuality on 24 June 1993. That year's Pride in Dublin took place two days later on the 26th. For Eddie McGuinness – who would later go on to be the Director of Dublin Pride from 2017 for six years – it was his first time attending the parade. He's never forgotten it. 'A thousand of us stood outside the Central Bank and celebrated who we were, because it was the first time the State actually recognised us as part of our nation,' said McGuinness, who is also the founder of the Outing Festival for LGBTQ+ music and arts. 'The feeling was scary but yet amazing. I still remember it,' he said. For Tonie Walsh, it's also a Pride that stands out strongly in his memory. Advertisement 'A group of people from Act Up Dublin – not surprisingly, all AIDS activists – decided to reinstate the parade in 1992. By 1993 there was about 1,000 people on parade, between 800 and 1,000 people, with a rally on the steps of the Central Bank,' Walsh said. 'Thom McGinty, The Diceman, did a striptease dressed up as prison convict because the government had reformed the old British legislation two days before – perfect timing.' Thom McGinty was an actor and street performer from Scotland known for performing as a 'stillness artist' and 'human statue' in Dublin city. He was a beloved figure in the LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s and 1990s but died from complications of AIDS in 1995 at the age of 42. 'A lot of people who stood on those steps of the Central Bank are no longer with us,' said McGuinness. 'The likes of Thom McGinty, the Diceman… Junior Larkin, who was one of the youngest activists who had set up the first-ever LGBT youth group in Ireland, is no longer with us, and is sometimes forgotten about in our history,' he said. 'A lot of activists who were there back then are no longer with us. But there's still some of us who are fighting the fight, and still keep smiling and trying to make the rainbow shine even brighter.' Around 5,000 people took part in the 2010 march. Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland Women in Ireland's LGBTQ+ community Pride and the movement for LGBTQ+ equality gained momentum in many countries after the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York City, when people attending the Stonewall gay bar fought back against police who were targeting them. As Pride parades developed, lesbians also started to organise 'Dyke Marches', which were for women in the LGBTQ+ community to create a space for them and to highlight the specific challenges they were facing in society. Ireland's first Dyke March was held on 26 June 1998 (and the first one in Dublin in decades was also organised for this year). 'Women, lesbians, have always been part of Pride, but there were also the separate Dyke Marches,' McAuliffe outlined. 'They were always inclusive of trans women. Irish LGBT activism has always been trans-inclusive, for the most part,' she said. 'In many ways, as a historian of LGBT histories, oftentimes, the majority of what you're talking or researching or reading about is about gay male homosexuality, mainly the campaign to decriminalise. That's very, very important. But you often see lesbians are kind of invisible in the narratives,' she said. 'It's important that lesbian visibility, trans-inclusive lesbian visibility, is there on the streets, in our histories, in our narratives of who and what we are in our activism. 'Women's lives often include motherhood, and there are issues around that still to be campaigned for, because lesbians are women, women who need, for example, full reproductive rights, women who need safety in society, women who've experienced sexual violence, domestic violence, all of those things.' McAuliffe's first experience of attending a Pride parade was in the late 1990s. 'Like many people, going on the first one, anytime I saw a camera pointed at me, I was hiding, because you may be marching down the street, but you're not that out and proud. It takes a while,' she said. 'I do remember that sense of belonging and community while at the same time feeling a little bit worried about being seen – and wanting to be seen. 'I think for younger people, it gives a way of feeling empowered, of maybe taking those extra steps in the coming out journey, because you have been with your community for a day and having great fun, great craic, and being involved in the political aspect of marching.' Into the 21st century Celebrations of Pride in Dublin and across the country have grown larger and stronger over the years. 'From 1993 onwards, what you saw was a really progressive development of pride, not just in Dublin but in the other urban centres around Ireland,' Walsh said. According to Walsh, that development was enabled by decriminalisation, by corporate sponsors starting to view the community as being 'of value to consumers' in a way that hadn't been a case before decriminalisation, and by a wider pool of people coming out in greater numbers and bringing skills with them that helped to organise Pride events. 'It is still a fabulous day out. Since my very first Pride event in Pride Week in 1980, I've missed very few,' Walsh said. 'There are a few that stand out over the years. Listening to Panti [Bliss] rabble-rousing on Wood Quay when the rally for the Pride Parade was in Wood Quay in the amphitheatre. That would have been 2014 or 2015. Myself, I remember being Grand Marshal in 2008 and getting everybody, four and a half thousand people in Wood Quay, to sing 'to be queer is to be special',' he recalled. More than 20 years after decriminalisation in 1993, another major step forward came in 2015 when the referendum to allow same-sex marriage in Ireland passed by a wide majority. 'I remember the one the year marriage equality was passed. That was fantastic. Such a celebratory one,' McAuliffe said. Two years later, Eddie McGuiness – a connoisseur of Prides in Ireland and abroad – became the Director of Dublin Pride. 'One of my biggest honours has always been to have gone on to manage and develop Dublin Pride – my first type of Pride – for nearly seven years, only stepping away the last couple of years because I was diagnosed with cancer,' McGuiness said. He also fondly remembers hosting Pride in his home town of Dundalk when it had its first significant parade a couple of years ago. The Pride parades in Limerick and Cork 'always give [him] a warm feeling', while Carlow Pride is 'so quirky and fun; the volunteers there put so much time and effort into it'. David Norris marches in the 2019 parade. Leah Farrell Leah Farrell The politics of Pride Within the LGBTQ+ community, there's a debate that's rolled on for many years about what the nature of Pride should be – whether it's right that it's taken on a celebratory, festival nature, or whether it should go back to its roots as a protest march. 'From the early 2000s, the marches became more like Mardi Gras. They were less political – but I think pride is political, and I think it is important that it is political and that it remains political,' said McAuliffe. 'Even though we have marriage equality in Ireland, there's still a lot of transphobia and there's rising homophobia and lesbophobia, and it's very important for people to still campaign around inclusion and acceptance of all in society,' she said. 'The far right are very homophobic, very transphobic, a lot of them… they don't want queer Irish people, they don't want trans Irish people, they don't want lesbians and gays. That has brought around a rise in virulent homophobia and transphobia, both online and in real life, and so I think we need to be more political around pride.' McGuinness said that 'when you look at the Pride movement, starting in New York in 1969 with the Stonewall riots to where we are now, there is still resistance within mainstream politics and society'. 'This is not just an LGBT issue. This is an immigrant issue. This is a women's issue. No matter who you are, if you're a minority, if you're a Traveller, right across the board, so-called mainstream society tries to downtrodden you, and we need to stand up to that. That is what Pride is all about. It's giving a voice to those who don't have a voice,' he said. For Walsh, Pride is about 'being visible and making a statement about unfinished political business, and it's a statement of celebration – but it is also an invitation by Irish LGBT people to mainstream Ireland to join us on our journey of liberation and acceptance and visibility'. 'It's important that mainstream Ireland embraces that invitation, understanding that the journey that Irish queers have taken to get to the place we find ourselves in today hasn't just been about us. That journey is about Irish society finding its collective empathy and understanding,' Walsh said. 'Every year, you hear some people asking, 'why do they need Pride?' But remember, people are still being beaten up and murdered in some parts of the world. We had homophobic murders in Sligo just a few years ago. Trans men and women are still being beaten up with impunity,' he said. 'There is much work to done. There are still people living in the shadows, even in Ireland, for all of our liberalism. Pride is a reminder that we need to turn our attention to all of that unfinished business.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Independent
3 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Irish politicians to attend banned Budapest Pride event as Victor Orbán threatens participants with ‘legal consequences'
They will be among a record number of people expected to attend the event, despite Mr Orbán threatening there would be 'legal consequences' for organisers and attendees. Mr O'Gorman and MEPs Maria Walsh and Cynthia Ní Mhurchú will in the crowd marching through the Hungarian capital today. Former Taoiseach Leo Varadar is also set to take part in the parade. Those in attendance 'face the possibility of arrest, a fine of up to €500 and imprisonment of up to one year under Hungarian law,' said Ms Walsh, who urged any Irish citizens intending on travelling to Budapest to be on 'high alert'. The Fine Gael MEP described the decision to ban Pride marches in Hungary as a 'frightening step backwards for members of the LGBTQI+ community across Europe'. 'I am proud to be marching in Budapest Pride this weekend. In a year when Orbán has classified public displays of love within my own community as a child protection issue, we must all fight back." The Hungarian government enacted a hugely controversial so-called 'child protection' law in 2021 that prohibits the "depiction or promotion' of homosexuality to children under the age of 18. A bill was also passed by the parliament that makes it illegal to hold any public gatherings that breached that law, with further legislation effectively banning Pride events. The European Court of Human Rights has previously ruled in a case involving Russia that banning such events breaches human rights protections. Ireland South MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, who will attend the march today, described the banning of Pride as a 'blatant attack on our civil liberties with the European Union'. She backed calls for the European Commission to intervene, including requesting interim measures in the ongoing infringement procedure against Hungary's 2021 anti-LGBTQ+ law. ADVERTISEMENT "The Hungarian Government's repeated violations of the rule of law and EU treaty principles is setting a dangerous precedent.' Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the atmosphere in Budapest has been 'tense' in the days ahead of the march. He told RTÉ's Drivetime that while he expects Hungarian authorities will not use 'batons and tear gas on tens of thousands of people' as 'the world would see that', the Green Party mayor of the city could be prosecuted and facial recognition technology will be used to identify attendees and fine them. "This is very oppressive, this is all contrary to European law, by the way, so I think there's a role for the European Union to play here in overturning some of these laws.' It comes as tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in Dublin's Pride parade today.
The Journal
3 hours ago
- The Journal
With fear and courage, Hungarians are refusing to let their government beat them down
IN THE BOOKSHOPS of Budapest, books that were easily available only a few years ago can no longer be openly found on the shelves. In police stations, authorities are preparing to use facial recognition software to identify and imprison organisers of the annual Pride parade. And in the homes of the city's LGBTQ+ community and their loved ones, people are anxiously watching as their government chips away at hard-fought-for human rights and democracy. Across the border – west to Romania, or north to Slovakia – more European Union citizens wonder if their country will be the next to ban Pride. Budapest Pride is marking its 30th anniversary this year. Organised Pride events started out small – a film festival; picnics on a mountain outside of the city – at a time when Hungary was only a few years out of the Soviet Union and most LGBTQ+ people weren't safe to let their identity be publicly known. The first march was in 1997, and the marches have continued each year since then (aside from 2020 on account of the pandemic). But this year, the Hungarian government wants to imprison its organisers. The Hungarian parliament buildings along the River Danube Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has led the country for almost as long as Pride has existed there, serving from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2010 up to the present day. During that time, his party, Fidesz – which once occupied the same political grouping in the EU as Fine Gael – has moved further and further to the right. In 2021, the parliament passed legislation to restrict the visibility of LGBTQ+ content, embedding into law that only over-18s should be allowed to engage with information and media that pertains in some way to LGBTQ+ people. The law has had numerous ramifications. For one, it's meant that bookshops have had to take children's books with LGBTQ+ characters off the shelves or wrap them up in plastic. One of the country's bookshop chains, Líra Könyv, was fined $34,000 in 2023 for failing to wrap up 'Heartstopper', a popular book-turned-Netflix hit featuring a relationship between two teenage boys. A legal opinion for the EU Court of Justice said that by enacting the law, Hungary has violated the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights by interfering with rights to human dignity, to freedom of expression, and to protection from discrimination. The country has 'significantly deviated from the model of a constitutional democracy'. On top of the anti-LGBTQ+ law, Hungary passed legislation this year curtailing freedom of assembly and introduced sweeping new powers to prosecute participants and organisers of protests. The government layered those laws to justify a ban on the Pride parade that's scheduled to take place in Budapest today. Budapest's mayor, a left-wing politician, said he could get around the restrictions by taking over the event to host it on a municipal level. Nonetheless, police intend to enforce the ban, and it's expected that attendees identified as taking part could be fined up to €500, and organisers could face imprisonment of up to a year. It is a distressing time to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary. But the government's mounting attacks, while repressive, have also emboldened many people to stand up for their rights and refuse to be pushed to the sidelines of society. A community centre in Budapest Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal Maja has been an event organiser at a community centre in Budapest for the last two years. The centre collaborates with several human rights campaigns and hosts music gigs, workshops, exhibitions, film nights and more. When The Journal visited, there were plenty of locals enjoying a warm summer's evening in the garden, and a poster-painting session inside to create banners for the Pride march. Advertisement The centre is due to have a tent at the end point of the Pride parade in what's known as the 'civil village'; a kind of fair where various groups and organisations set up stalls. 'Last year we had little bingo cards in the tent – the goal was to get people to talk to each other and to build community. We also had an exhibition about how it's important that Pride has to be about solidarity, and how it's more than just big corporations going out with the rainbow,' she said, referring to businesses that support Pride when it suits them but shy away when it doesn't. 'This was a big topic this year in Hungary. When they first talked about banning Pride, a lot of big corporations stayed very, very quiet. There were big corporations who went out to march when it was more accepted or 'trendy', but they are now really quiet and not trying to help the community.' Poster-making for Pride at the community centre Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal One of the biggest differences this year compared to others is the level of preparation that's gone in to organising and participating. 'This year we have to do a lot more preparation about what can you do in advance, what can you do there, what can you do after if they fine you for being there,' Maja said. 'There are different groups or blocks that march in the Pride, including a group that's in solidarity with Palestine, and that's also something that here that's banned – just marching with the Palestine flag. 'There's a lot of preparation for how to show what's important to you, how to show what you believe in, and how to march for your rights and your community and not a fine or get taken away by cops.' Maja expects that people who may not ordinarily attend Pride will turn out this year to support the community. 'My impression is that not just people who already belong to the community will march this year, but also a lot of others. Liberals who normally don't go to Pride because it's not that personal for them, but now, in this kind of political climate, there's a lot more people who will go.' Simon is from the UK and has lived in Budapest since 2016, where he worked for three years before retiring. He's always gone to the annual Pride parades but he thinks this one is going to be 'by far' the most important, and that it could be a tipping point for change. He has friends from other countries in Europe who are coming to the Budapest march to show solidarity, and expects, like Maja, that it's going to have a larger attendance than usual because of the volume of additional support. He said that while Pride in some other countries has become mostly a celebration, in Hungary, it's still fundamentally a protest because of the discrimination that the community faces. Simon said he's aware of the possibility that taking part could be dangerous and is a little concerned about the facial recognition software. He 'probably won't dress wildly flamboyant' the way he has at other Prides, but at the same time, he's 'not going to hide'. Simon said Pride in Budapest is still fundamentally a protest Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal Even as the government tries to marginalise Hungary's LGBTQ+ community, in Budapest, there are a number of local spots and events that pop up that bring people together. There's a popular restaurant and bar along the Danube where you can have a spot of brunch while watching a Drag Queen perform, or go along of an evening for a weekly Drag Queen-hosted bingo. Inside the restaurant one evening this week, a women from South America who moved to Hungary several years ago told The Journal that she's attended Pride each year since she arrived in Budapest but that she won't be going this year. Related Reads Irish politicians to attend Budapest Pride as Hungary threatens participants with fines Budapest mayor threatened with imprisonment as he defies police to host Pride parade It's too dangerous, she said, for people like her and her friends who could risk losing immigrant work visas. At a conference on Thursday organised by Budapest Pride, speakers warned that what's happening in Hungary is a warning bell for human rights and democracy around Europe. Asked to give a worst-case scenario forecast of where Europe could be in ten years, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said a repeat of the 1930s is not beyond the realm of possibility – though he strongly hopes it won't come to that. German MEP Terry Reintke, the co-chair of the Greens/EFA political grouping, said during a panel discussion that 'the far-right is growing stronger'. 'They have a very aggressive agenda, and for me, this is about trying to keep the far-right in check – and that depends on how other democratic forces are going to react to this.' András Léderer of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest-based human rights monitor, said the Hungarian government's aim is to 'discourage individual citizens to dare to behave as individual citizens, to have an opinion, to go and meet with like-minded people and discuss those issues'. 'The political calculation in Hungary was that it can isolate and alienate people who dare to behave as citizens.' András Léderer of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee speaking at the Budapest Pride conference Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal Later that day, The Journal visited a Pride event being held by a small film club. It convened in an apartment-turned-community library nestled inside a winding maze of a shared building, with books lining the walls almost from floor to ceiling. Around sixteen film enthusiasts gathered to watch the items on the night's agenda. The theme was centred around marking two significant advancements internationally for LGBTQ+ rights a decade ago in 2015. One was the US Supreme Court's ruling to allow same-sex marriage; the other was Ireland making that same choice by referendum. In Hungary, same-sex marriage is prohibited by the country's constitution, which was enacted by Orbán's government in 2012. A film club in Budapest watched two campaign videos from the Yes side of Ireland's marriage equality referendum Lauren Boland / The Journal Lauren Boland / The Journal / The Journal The organisers gave a short presentation about Ireland, the marriage referendum, and this year's Dublin Pride. With Hungarian subtitles on the screen, they played two of the campaign videos that were shared in the lead-up to the vote by the Yes side. The first was the 'Can I have Sinead's hand?' ad where a man asks everyone he meets for permission to marry his girlfriend, the message being that no-one should have to ask tens of thousands of others for sign-off to marry whom they choose. The second was probably the most prominent ad that came out of the Yes campaign – the one where young adults ask their family members to come with them to vote. 'Mam, it's time.' 'Granny, do you need a lift to the polling station?' You know the one. In a dark library, in a city struggling to stand up for itself, it made for emotional viewing – a reminder of how tirelessly the LGBTQ+ community in Ireland had to fight for equal rights; of how little time, really, has passed since then; of how many people in the world are still fighting that battle, like the Hungarians who were there watching, waiting, wondering when it might be their turn to celebrate equality too. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
