Posted on 05/11/2020 11:36:04 AM PDT by ebb tide
BUDAPEST, May 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) Hungary is refusing to ratify a Council of Europe human rights treaty on combating violence against women and domestic violence because its definition of gender denies there are only two sexes and because it could open the door to illegal immigration.
Hungarys Parliament voted overwhelmingly last week not to ratify the Istanbul Convention because of its unacceptable approach to defining gender and to lobby the European Union to do the same, according to About Hungary, a website run by the Cabinet office of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.
So named because it was opened for signing in Istanbul in May 2011, the Istanbul Convention is the first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation. Hungary signed the document in 2014, according to the U.K.s Guardian.
However, the governing Fidesz party backed a declaration put forward May 6 by its junior coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, not to ratify the treaty because it promotes gender ideology, and because its gender-based asylum measures promoted illegal immigration.
Had the Convention stuck to the protection of womens rights, Hungary would have been among the first countries to ratify it and adopt corresponding domestic legislation, wrote Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarys secretary of state for public diplomacy and relations, in a Thursday blog post on the government website.
According to Kovacs, Hungary has already incorporated most of the treatys recommendations on protecting women from violence into its national laws but cannot accept other measures that run counter to the countrys constitution.
Notably, the Istanbul Convention defines gender as socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men, said Kovacs.
This social gender definition, however, conflicts with Hungarys constitution because the clause denies that there are only two biological genders, male and female, he said.
Without biological genders, for example, Hungarys constitutional definition of marriage (the matrimony of a man and a woman) would become void. And if something contradicts the Fundamental Law, it cannot be adopted by Parliament.
PETITION: No to mandatory vaccination for the coronavirus Sign the petition here.
Hungarys coalition government also objected to Article 60, which requires that signatories take the necessary legislative or other measures to ensure that gender-based violence against women may be recognized as a form of persecution.
However, this could clearly lead to a dramatic increase in the number of migrants who set out westward to Europe, Kovacs said.
Articles 60 and 61 could also be interpreted to automatically grant gender-based asylum to applicants, he added.
If Hungary ratified the European treaty, it might then under certain conditions be compelled to grant entry to illegal migrants on grounds that run contrary to Hungarys well-established policy of discouraging and putting an end to migration.
Orbán, who has been prime minister of Hungary since 2010, declared in his 2018 State of the Nation speech that Christianity is Europes last hope and warned that European countries that have encouraged migration opened the way to the decline of Christian culture and the advance of Islam.
By refusing the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, Hungary, says Yes! to the protection of women but No! to gender ideology and illegal migration, stated Kovacs.
Hungarys rejection of the Istanbul Convention comes in the wake of controversy over a bill it introduced in early April to define gender solely as biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes.
The proposed law would limit identifying persons in official documents to their sex recorded at birth a classification that would then be legally impossible to change.
The bill sparked massive backlash from the LGBT lobby, which accused the Orbán government of discrimination for no longer allowing Hungarians to choose their preferred gender identity, as LifeSiteNews reported last week.
Critics also claimed that Orbán was using the additional powers Parliament granted him to deal with the coronavirus pandemic to push through the legislation.
Most recently, the United States watchdog organization Freedom House released a report Wednesday downgrading Hungary from a democracy to a transitional/hybrid regime in which citizens allegedly face substantial challenges to rights and liberties, reported Germanys international news site Deutsche Welle.
Zovacs responded by alleging on Twitter that Freedom House has ties to Hungarian-born globalist billionaire George Soros, the Orbán governments bête noire, and contending that [a]nyone who doesnt conform to their liberal view, gets downgraded.
In an apparent effort to curtail Soross interference in Hungarys politics, the Orbán government introduced a measure in 2017 to audit all foreign organizations.
At the time, the Soros Open Society Foundations (OSF) funded more than 60 Hungarian NGOs and had spent more than $1.6 billion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union over the last 30 years.
Related:
Hungary offers married couples $33,000 if they have three children
George Soros is a large-bodied predator: Hungarys Prime Minister wont surrender
LGBT activists outraged as Hungary moves to define gender according to biological sex
The proposed law would limit identifying persons in official documents to their sex recorded at birth a classification that would then be legally impossible to change.
The bill sparked massive backlash from the LGBT lobby, which accused the Orbán government of discrimination for no longer allowing Hungarians to choose their preferred gender identity, as LifeSiteNews reported last week.
Ping
Gender IS a social construct. Its a term hijacked from linguistics as a replacement for the biologically rooted traditional term of sex. To use it is to play by their rules. For a lark look up the man who coined it and all the wonderful things he got up to. Won’t teach you this in Gender Studies 101.
How queer. Why just the concern about violence against women?
There are women who are abusive against their husbands and children.
All domestic violence should be opposed.
Good for Hungary.
I wonder how hard it is to learn their language?
Might need someplace to escape to when the Trump era ends.
Orban is a hero.
Everyone should refuse to go along with their bastardization of the language.
Gender does indeed refer to language and is but just one example of what they have been doing, controlling the language to control the narrative to control the populace.
The time to get out is while they dont have an army.
Trying to polish a turd while the door closes behind you is so ... European
> Good for Hungary. I wonder how hard it is to learn their language? <
Good for Hungary, indeed. Poland also. The former eastern block nations know what tyranny is. So they will resist tyranny, this time in the form of the EU.
As for the Hungarian language, I speak enough of it to get by. My grandparents were born there. Hungarian is one of the most difficult languages of all to learn. Some experts say that Chinese has more in common with English than Hungarian does. What makes Hungarian so difficult is that it uses suffixes to add information to a sentence.
Say, for example, that you want to talk about a house. And its your house. In English youd simply put the word your in front of the word house. But in Hungarian you add a suffix to the word house. What makes it so tough is that the Hungarian your suffix will change, depending on the word you add it to.
Its called vowel harmony. Its interesting, but its also maddening.
Permit me to add one more thing. You might be able to get by just speaking English in Hungary, at least in the big cities.
One of my aunts visited Budapest about ten years ago. She was eager to practice her Hungarian. But the younger Hungarians she met wanted to practice their English instead!
LOL, just hope she had the right Phrasebook...
> LOL, just hope she had the right Phrasebook... <
Ha! No phrasebook would be needed. Like most of my older relatives, my aunt is fluent in both Hungarian and in English.
And that raises an important point. Those older relatives of mine all spoke Hungarian at home. But the quickly learned how to speak English. They had to, in order to navigate in the outside world.
But now many signs are in both English and in Spanish. So why should a Spanish-speaking immigrant bother to learn English? Those signs weaken this country.
Could you add me to that ping list?
Thanks for the article
+1,but it’s a hard one.
I lived in Budapest twice and learned Magyarul. It is FIENDISHLY difficult. It is one of THE most difficult things I ever studied and I started learning it right after I passed the bar exam.....
Hungarian is part of the Finno-Ugraic language family. Its only relatives are Finnish and Estonian (which is close to Finnish). It is not indo-European. You can look at the signs there and unlike in almost any other European country, you cannot understand one damned thing if you don’t speak it.
My grandpa would only speak Hungarian with his friends and neighbors.
He made my Mom speak English because he wanted her to be American.
I wish I was taught as a child by my gramps.
Oh well.
“Those signs weaken this country.”
By design.
Igen! Allany es Targyas.
To those who don’t know what I’m talking about with definite and indefinite......every language has 6 verb conjugations. First person (I, We), Second Person (you, you plural), Third Person (he/she/it, they). So....6.
Hungarian has 12. HUH?????? 12? Yes. 12. “How????” you ask. It depends on whether the object is definite or indefinite. Definite would be “the”. It identifies specifically which one. Indefinite would be “a”. You don’t know which one - it could be any one.
I buy a car. = Vasarolok egy auto. Vasarolni = to buy. the “ok” on the end means “I”. It was indefinite. It could be any car in general.
BUT
Vasarolom az autot. I buy THE car. You know which car. Therefore definite. Therefore “om” on the end of Vasar instead of “ok”.
and the fun doesn’t end there. Oh no. You know how you get to just hang an -s or -es on the end and make any noun plural in English? Not so easy in Hungarian. You have to know from the vowels in the noun if it is “deep” or “shallow”. Depending on that it could end in “ak”, “ek”, “ok”, (you get lucky and its just “k” if the noun ends in a vowel).
and there’s MORE loveliness like this. SO much more! :^)
There is one major compensation. MY GOD those are THE hottest women on the planet. HOLY CRAP are they smokin’ hot.
Yep, and I thought Polish was hard.
I was lucky. One of my grandmothers lived close to me. And she lived long enough that I learned quite a bit of Hungarian from her. My parents would never speak Hungarian around the house. When I asked about that, they said that they couldnt remember any of it.
Now, heres the interesting thing. One day my father and I went to a casino. I went in one direction, and he went in other. Later on, I found my father at a blackjack table. He was sitting next to an old friend of his, who also happened to be of Hungarian descent. They were both jabbering away in perfect Hungarian.
So my father couldnt remember any Hungarian?...I somehow think he could.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.