Last updated on August 24th, 2021 at 12:06 pm
Why is Tucker Carlson in Hungary this week to broadcast the most popular news show on cable TV and meet with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán?
For the same reason that our World Congress of Families convened there in 2017.
Hungary is lighting the way and holding the line as it protects its most precious national resources—family, marriage, and children—all of which will be celebrated in a three-day Hungarian talent festival at which Tucker will deliver a speech called “The World According to Tucker Carlson.” That he has traveled to Hungary to do so speaks volumes about this courageous and visionary nation.
Already in 2019, Tucker had praised Hungary’s policies blocking open immigration and favoring families that have more children. Instead of “abandoning Hungary’s young people to the hard-edged libertarianism of Soros and the Clinton Foundation,” said Tucker, “Orbán has decided to help Hungarian families grow.” More recently on July 21, 2021, the Prime Minister boldly announced that the EU had abused its power in taking legal action against Hungary’s law banning the depiction of homosexuality and gender reassignment in school or media content for minors, and then called for a national referendum to demonstrate popular support for the law.
Hungary’s policies are anchored in its foundational vision of family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. Having emerged from decades of godless and anti-family Soviet rule, in 2011 under Orbán’s leadership, Hungary declared in its constitution, “We hold that after the decades of the twentieth century which led to a state of moral decay, we have an abiding need for spiritual and intellectual renewal…. We believe that our children and grandchildren will make Hungary great again with their talent, persistence and moral strength.” And “we commit to promoting and safeguarding our heritage” and “promise to preserve the intellectual and spiritual unity of our nation torn apart in the storms of the last century.”
The constitution further explains that in order to achieve those lofty goals, Hungary will protect the right of every child to both a mother and a father. “Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman established by voluntary decision, and the family as the basis of the nation’s survival.”
A few months before our 2017 World Congress of Families, Hungary’s Minister for Family, Youth and International Affairs, Katalin Novák, issued a statement providing perspective on why Hungary was officially sponsoring the Congress (you can read her complete text online in our journal The Natural Family).
After 40 years of communist dictatorship, Hungary regained its independence and experienced a political transition in 1989-90. After 20 years of transitions in government, and without a real structural, political, ethical, or economic reconstruction, by 2010, our country and Hungarian people found themselves in a crisis. But then the current government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, gained a 2/3 majority at the general elections of 2010. We decided to rebuild our country on strong foundations….
Family is the cradle and maintainer of life, and it is our duty to protect and strengthen it. These principles and convictions are represented in our legal system. As the Hungarian Fundamental Law [constitution] puts it, “We hold that the family and the nation constitute the principal framework of our coexistence, and that our fundamental cohesive values are fidelity, faith and love.” With its more specific provisions, the Fundamental Law makes efforts to offer a stronger protection for families and to recognize that families comprise the foundation of Hungary’s integrity. Beside the Fundamental Law, the Act on the Protection of Families also ensures that the rights of families are strengthened and widely recognized. Therefore, the interests of families have been the focus throughout the whole period of our governance. Supporting and strengthening families on a continuous basis allows for our nation’s stability.
Katalin, a highly talented and effective government leader, then waxed personal as she spoke of what family means to her.
What does the concept of “family” mean for us? There are various possible answers to this question, as family plays various roles in an individual’s life. Let me begin on a personal note. I am a minister of state in the Hungarian government, but before that, a daughter of my parents, sister of my brother, wife of my husband, and mother of our three wonderful children. Family is where I come from, family is whom I belong to, and family is the main source of joy and love in my life. In a more general way, family is the smallest, most basic, and strongest social community and, as such, it is the founding unit of society; at the same time, it is a community of individuals that serves as a home. Also, it is the focal point of private life. For the Hungarian government, family is the foundation stone for our choice of values and the guideline for our political decisions. Families show how strong a nation is. If families are weak, then the nation is weak, too. If families are strong, a strong nation may also be achieved.
In Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s opening address at our World Congress of Families in Budapest on May 25, 2017, he declared,
The family is at the centre of the Hungarian government’s vision of the future. The motto of this conference is “Making Families Strong Again”. And this is right, because strong families will create a strong, competitive society and economy, a strong and competitive Hungary and Europe. When I was young—and it’s true that I grew up in a village—people used to ask how many children one had like this: “How many families do you have?” This question reflected the notion that in every child they saw the seed of a new family….
The Hungarian government… has… decided that 2018 will be the Year of Families. Our new action plan—which is so fresh that the ink is still not dry on it, as we adopted it at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting—is not the first of its kind, nor the last. I sincerely hope that it will have an impact not only on Hungary, but, as a good example, also on the entire region.
Hungary’s example was magnified to the world thanks to the thousands attending our World Congress of Families from around the globe. And Hungary continues to shine as a lighthouse to remind an increasingly hostile world of the indispensable role of family, marriage, and our precious children.