The subject is always the Hungarian Child Protection Act, the one that everyone keeps criticizing without having read it. Last week there was the absurd raising of shields by half the EU, including its leadership and my poor home country Italy. Particularly disliked were the words of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who candidly invited Budapest to leave the EU if it does not bow to certain ideological conformism. Specifically, he explicitly said that there is no place in the EU for a Hungary that does not bow to the voice of its master.
Curious words, for at least a couple of reasons.
The first is that the Hungarian law in question continues to be a good, common sense law that protects children from all kinds of harassment, be it heterosexual, homosexual, or any other kind whatsoever. The sole point of the law is in fact the protection of minors from aggression, not homophobia. Because otherwise we would have to speak of “heterophobia” as well, since the Hungarian law for the protection of minors seeks to ban any aggression or harassment of minors, whether homosexual or heterosexual. The editor of iFamNews Italy is heterosexual, but he doesn’t cry “heterophobic” scandal if a law protects children from heterosexual abuse: he just defends the law because it’s a good and smart law. He wants children to be protected from abuse, regardless of the sexual orientation of the harasser. He is simply applauding a law that he will never tire of calling (as a professional, a husband, a father and a gentleman) a common-sense law, since it defends children from all kinds of aggression. I love these exercises in minimalist logic, which the world we live in has unlearned to appreciate, and the reader will not mind if I propose them from time to time.
The second exercise is this: if it is not homophobia, since there is no “heterophobia” either, why is the world of LGBT+ ideology so angry at the Hungarian law protecting minors? Perhaps because they think that children should not be protected from any assault? Of course not. What then?
Let me now turn to the second reason for curiosity about what Mr Rutte has said.
Who is Mr Rutte to tell an EU Member State of the same rank as the one he represents to either eat this soup or jump out of the window? Who is Mr Rutte to tell the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to either bow to ideological dictates or leave? Has Mr Rutte been handed the keys to the EU gate?
Of course, the point is that Rutte is not the only one who thinks so, so much so that none of his peers were outraged by his illiberal words about Hungary. But the question remains. Did we build the EU to become servants in it, to serve the arrogance of the powerful, to be subjected to their impositions? Without thinking twice, I would say that Robert Schuman (1886–1963), who has just been declared “venerable”, had a different idea of the EU. Again, I would say, at a first glance, that it is not so different from what Mr. Orban said on Hungarian public radio when he called Mr Rutte a colonialist; that is, when he uttered words about that freedom which the conformist-directing Rutte had lost the address to.
This is a very serious matter, given that the object of contention is, and always remains, the defense of minors from all types of aggression and harassment.