Hungarian authorities have fined the distributor of a children’s book featuring same-sex parents.
Some troubling news: Hungarian authorities have fined the distributor of a children’s book for its depiction of homosexuality. The book in question, a two-part Hungarian translation of Early One Morning and Bedtime, Not Playtime! by Lawrence Schimel, portrays the daily routines of two children, who each have same-sex parents.
The fine was imposed by the Pest County Government Office. On Tuesday, Pest County commissioner Richard Tarnai said that the book’s distributor hadn’t clearly indicated the contained “content which deviates from the norm” and thus violated rules on unfair commercial practices: “There is no way of knowing that this book is about a family that is different from a normal family.” The law Tarnai references, passed in June, prohibits showing minors content that “depicts or promotes homosexuality.”
This is just one of many discriminatory moves from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s far-right government, which has made LGBTQ discrimination a focus of its administration. This is not even the first time the Hungarian government has cracked down on books with LGBTQ themes: in January, they ordered a publisher to print disclaimers on books deemed to be showcasing “behavior inconsistent with traditional gender roles.” Orbán himself called one such book, the fairytale anthology Wonderland is for Everyone, “homosexual propaganda” and added that homosexuals should “leave our children alone.”
[h/t Associated Press]
