The fine was imposed just before a new law came into force – condemned by the European Union.
Hungarian authorities have fined a distributor of a children’s book for same-sex “rainbow families” against unfair commercial practices. The American author called the decision “a direct attack on freedom of information and freedom of publication,” Reuters reported.
The fine was imposed just before a new law came into force tomorrow – condemned by the European Union – tightening a ban on the distribution in Hungarian schools of content believed to promote homosexuality and gender reassignment.
According to a local government official, the distributor misled consumers because the book, in which one of the main characters is a boy with two mothers, was placed in bookstores among other children’s books, without its “different” content being adequately labeled.
The book is a Hungarian translation of “Early One Morning” by American science fiction and fantasy writer Lawrence Schimmel, which shows the daily lives of two families from the perspective of children.
“This book was placed among other fairy tales and thus they broke the law,” Richard Tarnay, a representative of the Pest district authorities, told a private TV channel. “The unfair practice is that you can’t see that a family that is different from the normal family appears in this book. If that’s noted, there’s no problem.”
Tarnay did not name the distributor, who according to the law against unfair trade practices must pay a fine of 250,000 forints ($ 834).
The author, Shimmel, told Reuters that it was important that his book was attacked just before the new LGBT + law came into force in Hungary.
“It’s a coordinated attack, trying different methods to instill fear in talking about rainbow families and other problems that exist in the world,” he said.
The Foundation for Rainbow Families, the publisher of One Morning Early, said on its Facebook page that the book has helped nearly 1,000 “rainbow families” in Hungary, meaning families. of one sex raising a child or a family with LGBT + parents.
“Rainbow families are perfectly normal, ordinary families. The book is about simple, ordinary events, and parental sexuality is not the subject of the book.”
The European Union and human rights organizations have sharply criticized the new Hungarian law. Today, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen again called for it to be repealed and said it was a “shame” for people to be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.
Prime Minister Victor Orban’s right-wing government says it protects traditional Christian values from what it sees as Western European over-liberalism.
