At the last European Council meeting, the rainbow-flagged prime ministers paraded in a phalanx. They wanted to clarify matters: Does the unity of values still exist? The debate was eerily similar to the one in June 2015, which erupted over the migrant invasion of Europe. Both were morally difficult, politically important and intellectually beautiful debates.
And in both cases, the answer is the same: There is no unity of values and therefore no political unity either.
In both cases, the liberals started from the premise that these were issues to which there was only one answer, one in line with the liberal hegemony of opinion.
The response of the illiberal democrats was that there are different answers, in accordance with the pluralism of opinion, to which every state and people have a right, and that only an approach of “unity in diversity” can hold the European Union together.
Liberals believe that everyone has the right to migrate and to enter the territory of the European Union, even if it is not directly from a dangerous country but through a safe third country. The right to migrate, they say, is essentially a human right.
In the current debate about the sexual education of children, liberals state that children should be given awareness-raising publications that can educate them about heterosexuality, homosexuality, abandoning their biological sex and sex-change operations. According to liberals, this is a child’s human right, the parent’s choice should not be exclusive, and state institutions have a role, even a priority in this.
Children can be sensitized without parental consent and without state restrictions.
According to the illiberal democrats, the sexual education of children is the right of the parent, and without their consent, neither the state nor political parties, neither NGOs nor rainbow activists may play a role.
Rainbow countries have the right to move beyond the binary social arrangement based on man-woman and mother-father social order. They used to be like that, too, but have moved on to another dimension, deliberately and by elevating their intentions to the level of state policy.
This right cannot be challenged by another state, especially because Germany has taken on the flagship role. Whether it is wise to demonstrate again in armbands and rush onto the pitch with a rainbow flag during the Hungarian national anthem in the Munich football stadium, I am not sure. But I am sure that it is up to Germans to decide on the education of German children. I am also certain that only Hungarians can decide on the education of Hungarian children, and certainly not the Germans, Dutch or Belgians.
Whether it is better to live in a binary or a rainbow world and why is a question on which both sides argue their own opinion. Everyone has one’s own truth.
But from the point of view of the law, international law, EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the right position is beyond doubt. Migration is not a human right, and how a child is brought up sexually is not a child’s human right. There is no such human right. Instead, there is Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights on the right of parents to ensure that their child is provided with an appropriate upbringing. If we want to keep the European Union together, liberals must respect the rights of non-liberals. Unity in diversity. That is the future.
Viktor Orbán
Prime minister of Hungary
—
Translation provided by the International Communications Office of the Hungarian government.
