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Nearly Half of LGBTQ Adults Are Religious, U.S. Study Finds

Almost half of LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious, according to a recent report from the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute.

Of nearly 16,000 respondents polled in the Gallup Daily Tracking Survey, 47 percent were either moderately or highly religious. Those who were older, Black or lived in the South were the most likely to be religious, researchers found.

To determine religiosity, respondents were asked about service attendance and the importance of religion in their daily lives.

Respondents who said religion was not an important part of their daily life and they never or seldom attended services were categorized as “not religious.” Those who indicated religion was important — even if they attended services less than once a month — were classified as “moderately religious,” as were those who attended services weekly, even if they said religion was not important in their lives.

Respondents who said religion was an important facet of their daily life and they attended regular services were categorized as “highly religious.”

By that metric, 27 percent were classified as moderately religious, 20 percent as highly religious and just over half (53 percent) as not religious.

According to the authors of the report, the 5.3 million religious LGBTQ adults in America “are found across the age spectrum, in every racial-ethnic group, among married and single people, among those who are parenting, and among rural and urban dwellers.”

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Still, certain patterns emerged, particularly among generations.

Only 38.5 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds and about 40 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds were religious. That compares to more than half (51 percent) of those 35 to 49 who could be classified as religious and 56 percent of those 50 to 64.

Religiosity was highest among people 64 and older: Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) were moderately or highly religious.

That surprised lead author Kerith J. Conron, research director at the Williams Institute, considering how unwelcoming most churches have been toward LGBTQ people historically.

“Their faith must have been pretty strong when they were younger and coming out and there were even fewer accepting places,” she said. “It persisted despite discrimination and rejection.”

She predicts those numbers will decline drastically in future years.

“My hypothesis is that fewer and fewer people in young adulthood are choosing religion. It’s a pattern we see in non-LGBT people, as well,” Conron said. “People are consciously deciding to step away from the religion of their youth because it doesn’t embrace their values.”

Even straight Americans have cited their church’s treatment of the gay community as part of the reason they’ve left, she added.

According to a 2019 Pew Research Center analysis, 26 percent of Americans identify as agnostic, atheist or “nothing in particular,” up from 17 percent just a decade earlier.

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Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, New York’s LGBTQ synagogue, said the barriers gay people face when participating in their faith have only started to fall.

“There’s been progress, but I deal with people all the time from liberal religious families who have faced horrible bigotry and rejection,” she said.

But, she added, the hunger for spirituality is deep among gay people — perhaps even deeper than among the larger population.

“Everyone has that desire for meaning or purpose, but for LGBT people, it’s right there on the surface,” Kleinbaum told NBC News. “Anyone who goes through the process of discovering a deeper truth about themselves, especially if it’s at odds with the larger world, understands a sense of revelation, of deeper truth. It’s our going to Mount Sinai.”

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Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the LGBTQ-affirming New Ways Ministry, agreed.

“LGBTQ people have many spiritual gifts which can renew religious institutions, if these groups would just perform the simple and holy acts of welcoming and listening,” DeBernardo said.

The vast majority of religious LGBTQ Americans are Christian — split fairly evenly among Catholics (25 percent), Protestants (28 percent) and other Christian denominations (24.5 percent). Only about 2.5 percent identify as Jewish and 2 percent as Muslim.

But the percentage of gay Americans who identify as part of any faith tradition is still considerably lower than in the general population, of which 67 percent is religious, according to a 2017 Gallup analysis.

Even LGBTQ Black Americans, the most likely demographic to be religious (over 70 percent), still lag behind Black people in the general population: More than 82 percent are religious.

“The reason there has been such tension between LGBTQ people and institutional religious groups has not been because LGBTQ people are not religious,” DeBernardo said, “but because faith groups have vilified them and excluded them.” Working on inclusion in the Catholic Church, he said, “I have seen an enormous number of LGBTQ people whose faith and religious identity are so strong that they continue to push for acceptance even against mammoth walls of opposition.”

Whether it’s too late for churches and synagogues to attract gay parishioners remains to be seen. But if there’s any hope, Kleinbaum said, “We have to go beyond tolerance.”

“We need to say, ‘This is who God created,’ and celebrate them.”

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Supreme Court Asked to Consider Case that Could strip Queer Parental Rights

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Indiana’s attorney general has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that allows same-sex couples to both be listed as parents on their child’s birth certificate.

The ruling came after a four-year legal battle fought by two lesbian parents, Ashlee and Ruby Henderson, who sued county health officials when they refused to include them both on their son’s birth certificate.

Their lawsuit argued that it was discriminatory to force one mother from a same-sex marriage to fork over $4,000 to $5,000 to legally adopt their child.

Seven additional couples joined the suit as plaintiffs, and in January 2020 the courts finally ruled that since Indiana law presumes a husband to be the biological father of a child born in wedlock, a same-sex spouse should also be considered a parent on the birth certificate.

Ten months later, Indiana attorney general Curtis Hill is seeking to overturn it all.

He’s submitted a brief asking the Supreme Court to review the landmark decision — a move that had the Hendersons’ attorney wondering why state officials “continue to fight against families headed by same-sex spouses,” Indystar said.

Hill’s 46-page brief argues that upholding the lower court’s decision would violate common sense and throw into jeopardy parental rights based on biology.

“A birth mother’s wife will never be the biological father of the child, meaning that, whenever a birth-mother’s wife gains presumptive ‘parentage’ status, a biological father’s rights and obligations to the child have necessarily been undermined without proper adjudication,” he wrote.

When a similar case from Arkansas came before the Supreme Court in 2017, judges determined that precluding one parent from a birth certificate infringes upon their rights as a married couple. But the courts could reach a very different outcome in Indiana now that Trump has stacked the judiciary in his favour.

It’s among the first cases submitted to the Supreme Court dealing with same-sex marriage since the confirmation of justice Amy Coney Barrett, and is likely to be a test of things to come.

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Trailblazing Lesbian Journalist Who Opened America’s Eyes to LGBT+ Lives Dies at 62

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Deb Price, a trailblazing lesbian journalist who helped open America’s eyes to LGBT+ lives, has died aged 62.

Price made history when she started writing a column for the Detroit News in 1992 exclusively focusing on gay issues, becoming the first columnist nationwide to do so.

The legendary journalist died on 20 November in Hong Kong from interstitial pneumonitis, an autoimmune condition that causes damage to the lungs.

Price’s wife, Joyce Murdoch, told the Bay Area Reporter that she was diagnosed with the condition 13-years-ago and that it “gradually diminished her lung capacity”.

Murdoch said Price “lived life fully” and continued working at the South China Morning Post right up until she was hospitalised in September as her condition worsened.

There has been an outpouring of grief after trailblazing lesbian journalist Deb Price died.

There has been an outpouring of grief from those who knew and loved Price, with many former co-workers and editors praising her as a trailblazing figure unafraid to tackle LGBT+ issues in her work.

Bob Giles, the editor and publisher who commissioned Price’s first gay-themed column, told the Detroit News: “She gave us a stack [of columns] that were really well done and they seemed to fit into the idea that it was a changing world and Deb had a capacity for expressing that.”

Reflecting on her incredible legacy, Joshua Benton, founder of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, wrote on Twitter: “I am very sorry to report the death of Deb Price, a tremendous journalist, a Nieman Fellow (Class of 2011), and a real trailblazer for LGBTQ people in newsrooms and around the country.”

Benton said it was “hard to overestimate” how significant her column was.

“This was long before the internet gave Americans a window into any topic or community they wanted. Most people got a huge share of their information about the world from the local daily and local TV news.

“Most Americans in 1992 said they didn’t know a single gay person. Then suddenly there was Deb, on the breakfast table next to the sports section.

“She wasn’t just running in New York City and San Francisco, either – she was reaching people in red states too.”

Your brave work impacted many in ways you might never have imagined. A life well-lived.

Benton shared images of just some of the abuse Price received in letters to the editor written in response to her column, with one reader saying she was “breaking God’s laws”, while another said the newspaper was “morally wrong” to publish her words.

However, he also shared letters written to the editor showing the love LGBT+ readers showed her, while other straight readers thanked the newspaper for educating them on a topic they had not previously understood.

Dana Nessel, attorney general of Michigan, also mourned Price’s death, writing on Twitter: “I was one of your regular readers. Thank you for making me feel less alone and hopeful for a world that might one day embrace LGBTQ people instead of loathing us.

“Your brave work impacted many in ways you might never have imagined. A life well-lived.”

Nate Hurst, a political journalist, also heaped praise on Price’s legacy, writing: “Deb Price was the first coworker I came out to – before I had the courage to tell my friends and family. She also showed me the ropes on Capitol Hill. Deb was a fierce reporter, a humble trailblazer, and an unstoppable force for good in the world.

“She is very much missed.”

Price and her wife later compiled her columns and published them in a book titled And Say Hi to Joyce. They dedicated the book to “all the gay readers who’ve put 25 cents in a newspaper box and found nothing reflecting their own lives inside.”

Speaking to Associated Press in 1992 about her first column, Price said she asked readers how she should “introduce Joyce” to others. A reader suggested that she should introduce Joyce as her “partner in perversity”.

“I think it’s really important for me to remember (and) for other people to remember that if there weren’t hostility and if there weren’t misunderstandings about gay people, there would be no point in doing this column,” she said at the time.

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New COVID-19 Spike Spreading Beyond Urban Areas to all Corners of California

The autumn COVID-19 surge has now spread not only through major urban areas like Los Angeles but across California and even to the far northern rural reaches of the state, a troubling sign as the state faces its greatest challenge from the pandemic yet.

A Los Angeles Times data analysis found that most California counties are now suffering their worst coronavirus daily case rates of the entire COVID-19 pandemic, surpassing even the summer surge that had forced officials to roll back the state’s first reopening in the late spring.

The data suggest California will face new problems in December if the unprecedented rise in cases continues. In earlier phases of the pandemic, different parts of California could help harder-hit areas, like San Diego County and San Francisco taking in patients from Imperial County. But that could be difficult in this wave, with the pandemic worsening in most places across California simultaneously.

“We can’t depend on our counties next to us because they are under the same stress and strain,” said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the Santa Clara County COVID-19 testing officer. “They can’t provide us with beds in their counties. So we are on our own. And our hospitals are hurting at this point.”

The Times analysis also demonstrates how the coronavirus has managed to break free from densely packed neighborhoods in urban areas and farming communities in agricultural valleys, where the virus infected essential workers — many of them Latino — who had no choice but leave home to work.

Now, infections are spreading faster in other communities. In Marin County, health officer Dr. Matt Willis said the pandemic has moved from just hitting predominantly Latino communities. Now, in just the last month, “the majority of cases are among our white residents,” Willis said.

“We’re finding a greater proportion of those cases among people who are gathering indoors, and might have a more reasonable option to avoid those exposures, because they’re based on personal choices,” Willis told the Board of Supervisors. “It’s most discouraging that that’s what is driving it — but also encouraging because we think those are behaviors that people have more control over, because it’s not a matter of economic necessity.”

In just the last week, record average daily coronavirus case rates have hit L.A. and other hot spots like San Bernardino and San Diego counties, the Times’ analysis found, which have already received much attention in recent weeks as hospitals have begun to fill and where, in some cases, the daily death toll has risen. The crisis has only become exponentially worse in recent weeks.

Many other counties are also seeing record highs in their average daily case rate observed just the last week, according to the Times analysis, including Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Mateo, Solano, and Santa Cruz. Counties across Northern California have also posted record highs in recent days, such as Napa County; Yolo County, home of the University of California, Davis; Nevada, Placer and El Dorado counties, which sprawl from the state capital’s suburbs to Lake Tahoe; and sparsely populated Mariposa County, home to Yosemite Valley.

In all, more than 23 million Californians, living in 31 counties, are currently in what’s shaping up to be the worst wave of the pandemic, the Times analysis found.

Across California, the seven-day average of daily coronavirus cases have more than quadrupled since mid-October, from less than 3,000 a day to nearly 14,000 a day as of Wednesday. In just two weeks, average daily deaths have doubled: every day, 74 Californian COVID-19 deaths are reported on average as of Wednesday, up from an average of 38 a day.

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Chopin Wrote a ‘Flood’ of Homoerotic Love Letters ‘Erased from History’

Gay love letters written by Polish composer Frédéric Chopin were deliberately mistranslated by historians to conceal his sexuality, a music journalist has claimed.

According to The Guardian, Swiss music journalist Moritz Weber had been researching letters written by Chopin during lockdown earlier this year when he discovered a “flood of declarations of love aimed at men”.

His findings were explored in the two-hour radio show Chopin’s Men, aired on the arts channel of Swiss broadcaster SRF, and Weber insisted that some of the composer’s writing must have been intentionally mistranslated.

In one letter, Chopin said that rumours about his love affairs were a “cloak for hidden feelings”, and his writing also hints at an interest in “cottaging”, or looking for sex in public toilets.

In one letter to a male school friend, he wrote: “You don’t like being kissed. Please allow me to do so today. You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night.”

There are 22 letters on record from Chopin to the same friend, Tytus Woyciechowski, and he often began them with “my dearest life”, and signed off: “Give me a kiss, dearest lover.”

But the English-Canadian biographer Alan Walker insisted in his 2018 book Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times that the homoerotic love letters penned by Chopin were the result of “psychological confusion”, and added that Woyciechowski was a “bosom friend”.

Chopin gay love letter was edited to suggest it was about a woman.

In an 1829 letter to Woyciechowski, Chopin wrote: “My ideal, whom I faithfully serve, […] about whom I dream.”

However a translation of the letters published by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland, described his “ideal” as a woman, despite the original letter using the masculine version of the Polish noun.

A spokesperson from the institute spoke on the radio show, and admitted that there was no actual proof that Chopin had had relationships with women, only rumours and accounts from family members.

The translator of the 1829 letter told The Guardian: “He was a romantic who definitely didn’t discriminate between men and women in his expressions of ‘love’. But to say that there is some sort of conspiracy behind ‘missing’ letters in the various critical editions is absurd.

“The institute is indeed a politically conservative organisation, but I didn’t find any bowdlerisation in the Polish edition, nor any ‘correction’ of my notes to passages where Chopin’s sexuality was concerned.”

Whether or not the editing of Chopin’s love life was intentional, Weber said he hopes that shining a light on his sexuality will help people better understand his music.

In a letter Woyciechowski, Chopin wrote: “I confide in the piano the things that I sometimes want to say to you.”

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First LGBT+ Marching Band Performs at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been running for 96 years, but 2020 saw the first-ever performance for an all LGBT+ marching band.

The Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps (LGBAC) was formed in 1979, a decade after the Stonewall uprising, and has been applying to take part in the New York parade for years.

However this year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade organisers made the decision to limit the number of participants and only select local bands from New York and the tri-state area to perform.

The restrictions meant that the LGBAC finally got their chance to perform in the parade, watched by more than 20 million people across the country, with one band member describing the opportunity as “bucket list material”.

The all-queer band performed “Dancing Queen” by ABBA.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=lilylwakefield&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1331995857156263936&lang=en-gb&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk%2F2020%2F11%2F28%2Flgbt-marching-band-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-lesbian-gay-big-apple-corps%2F&siteScreenName=PinkNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px

The marching band’s artistic director Marita Begley told NBC New York: “There are families out there in middle America, throughout the country, that are going to see this and it’s going to give hope to young people who are questioning their sexuality, their gender.”

Founding band member Joe Avena added: “People will see that we’re part of them, and part of their lives, and part of what they love.”

Members of the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps march the Annual Mermaid Parade Held In Coney Island on June 22, 2019 in New York City. (Kena Betancur/Getty)

Begley, who joined the LGBT+ marching band in the 1980s, described the LGBAC’s brand of “quiet activism” in an interview with The Atlantic.

She said: “We were quiet activists. No one would invite ACT UP to their parade. But small towns were inviting the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps to march in their Fourth of July parade.”

Begley described attending local parades, and how it would slowly dawn on those watching that the marching band had all LGBT+ members. Some, she said, would give a thumbs down, but others just kept clapping.

She said: “It was almost subversive to use the most mom-and-apple-pie, all-American of mediums, the marching band, to open minds. It really is.”

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World AIDS Day Arrives Amid Another Pandemic

With COVID-19 cases continuing to spike around the world, most events for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 have been moved to virtual formats to continue bringing awareness to the AIDS epidemic. 

The World AIDS Day organization has scheduled a virtual panel discussion for 9 a.m. on Tuesday with professionals in the field of HIV prevention and treatment to share how communities can reduce the stigma and impact of the disease. On the panel will be Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Richelle Joe, Community Liaison for Janssen Scientific Affairs Samuel Quintero, and Adam Troy, prevention manager at an Orlando-based nonprofit, Hope and Help. 

CAMP Rehoboth is slated to hold one of the only in-person events in the region with a World AIDS Day Candlelight Vigil and Service of Remembrance and Hope in Rehoboth Beach. 

“This event has been a December tradition in Rehoboth Beach since the mid-1990s and no way is COVID going to stop us from remembering this important day,” the organization said in a statement on its website.

The vigil will start at 7 p.m. and attendees can participate in the candlelight drive-up vigil to watch from the safety of their cars. The service and reading of the names will be held under the outdoor portico at Epworth Methodist Church on Holland Glade Road in Rehoboth. The entire event will also be live streamed on CAMP Rehoboth’s Facebook page. If participants would like to add a name to be read during the service, the organization asks that they call them at 302-227-5620. 

Several chapters of Delta Sigma Theta are banding together to host a “Rock the Ribbon” virtual panel presentation on Tuesday to commemorate World AIDS Day. Those who wish to attend can register for the 6:30 p.m. event online. 

Youth Stop AIDS — a U.K.-based nonprofit — has scheduled a screening of “After 82: The Untold Story of the AIDS Crisis in the UK,” a documentary focusing on personal stories of the AIDS crisis in the UK. The film features interviews with actor Jonathan Blake who lived with AIDS for more than 30 years. The screening is scheduled for Nov. 29 starting at 12:30 p.m. EST. 

AIDS Delaware will stage a free, virtual panel discussion on Dec. 5 with panelists who are currently living with HIV/AIDS and can speak on how the virus has impacted their lives. The panel, which starts at 1 p.m., will feature activist and author Tez Anderson, activist and motivational speaker Hydeia Broadbent, and Emmy Award-winning author Marvelyn Brown. 

Anderson coined the term AIDS Survivor Syndrome—ASS—to describe the effects of living with HIV/AIDS in the long term. He also founded Let’s Kick ASS, a San Francisco-based group designed to empower long-term HIV survivors and help them connect with one another. He also coined the term AIDS Survivor Syndrome to describe the effects of living with HIV/AIDS in the long term. 

Broadbent was diagnosed with AIDS at age three and now spends her time raising awareness of the virus by promoting safe-sex practices. She became a public speaker at age six and over the next thirty years, she’s appeared in the New York Times, People, the Oprah Show, and Teen People. Ebony Magazine named Broadbent one of the most influential African Americans in 2008 and 2011. 

Brown has spoken at hundreds of colleges, universities, and conferences around the world to spread her story of contracting HIV when she was 19. She’s been featured on CNN’s Black America, Frontline’s Endgame, and America’s Next Top Model. In 2007, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding National Public Service Announcement.

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Joe Biden Appoints Gay Staffer to High Profile White House Role

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A gay staffer has been appointed to a powerful role by president-elect Joe Biden.

The incoming leader, who this week received the official go-ahead for his transition to power, has been hard at work setting up the team of top officials who will fill his White House.

As he makes a number of cabinet posts and high-profile appointments, Biden has tapped a prominent gay staffer for an important role.

Gay staffer Carlos Elizondo tapped for top White House role

Carlos Elizondo has been named the social secretary for the incoming White House, after previously filling a similar role for Biden for all eight years of his vice presidency under Barack Obama.

The role places him in charge of  planning, coordination and execution of official social events at the White House.

Biden said in a statement dated Friday (20 November): “I’m proud to name additional members of our team who will help deliver the change America needs in these difficult times. Their dedication to overcoming the challenges facing our country today are rooted in their diverse backgrounds and experiences. They will serve the American people and help build back better, creating a more just, equitable, and united nation.”

Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain added: “To bring president-elect Biden and vice president-elect Harris’ agenda to life you must have a boundless team of experts ready for day one.

“Today’s appointees are respected leaders who will bring a commitment to serving the American people each and every day. They will support our work to build an administration and White House that represents America and delivers results.”

Joe Biden's incoming White House social secretary Carlos Elizondo
Joe Biden’s incoming White House social secretary Carlos Elizondo

Elizondo, who has previously worked in events at Georgetown University and Walt Disney World, currently lives with his partner in Washington DC.

Joe Biden administration could have a number of high-ranking LGBT+ staffers

The staffer is likely to be far from the only out figure in a senior White House role. Karine Jean-Pierre, currently chief of staff to vice president-elect Kamala Harris, could become the first out lesbian and first Black woman to be named White House press secretary.

Dr Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health and one of the most senior trans officials in the US, has also been touted as an outside chance at a healthcare role.

Meanwhile, former presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg is said to be in the running for a potential cabinet appointment, though several of the higher-ranking roles he was initially touted for, such as ambassador to the United Nations, have since been filled with picks prioritising policy experience.

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Soldiers Dismissed for their Sexuality win Compensation from German Government

Germany’s government has approved legislation that will offer €3,000 in compensation for gay military personnel who have experienced discrimination.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s defence minister, said: “I know that we can’t make up for the personal injustice they suffered but, with the lifting of verdicts and the payment of lump-sum compensation, we want to send a signal of redress.”

The new legislation aims to “restore the dignity of these people who wanted nothing other than to serve Germany”, according to Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The legislation still requires paliamentary approval, but Kramp-Karrenbauer is optimistic about getting the support of lawmakers. She hopes to “rehabilitate and compensate those affected next year”.

The ministry previously commissioned a study and found “systemic discrimination” in the military from 1955 to 2000. This included both West Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, and the military of reunited Germany from 1990.

The study found that homosexuality was “viewed as a security risk in the Bundeswehr until the turn of the millennium and made a career as an officer or non-commissioned officer impossible”.

The new legislation will also cover victims of discrimination in East Germany’s National People’s Army. Kramp-Karrenbauer said this was “an important signal” because 2020 marks 30 years since the reunification of Germany.

The government will offer €3,000 in compensation to personnel who received military court verdicts for consensual gay sex. Soldiers who were dismissed, denied for promotions or put under investigation will also be eligible for compensation.

In September, Kramp-Karrenbauer apologised to those who suffered discrimination.

The defence minister said: “I very much regret the practice of discrimination against homosexuals in the Bundeswehr, which stood for the policy of that time. I apologize to those who suffered because of it.”

This comes after the UK Ministry of Defence apologised for similar policies in January. However, the UK has not yet introduced an official compensation scheme for those dismissed from the military on grounds of their sexual orientation.

More than 150 people have sought compensation in the UK, though its thought the true number affected is likely to run into the thousands.

Rudolf Scharping, previously Germany’s defence minister, ended official discrimination in 2000 after an officer took a legal case to Germany’s highest court having been removed from his position. Scharping stated: “Homosexuality does not constitute grounds for restrictions in terms of assignment or status.”

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Hungary Ramps Up Anti-LGBTQ Legislation

A constitutional amendment before the Hungarian Parliament would effectively ban LGBTQ people from adopting, drawing the ire of human rights activists.

Draft language submitted to parliament this month by Justice Minister Judit Varga states that children must be raised “in accordance with the values based on our homeland’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”

“The basis for family relations is marriage,” it reads in part. “The mother is a woman, the father is a man.”

Under the amendment, only opposite-sex married couples would be eligible to adopt children, with exceptions made on a case-by-case basis by Minister of Family Affairs Katalin Novák. The bill effectively bans gay couples, single people and unmarried straight couples from adopting.

It also asserts that the government “protects children’s right to the gender identity they were born with.”

Image: FILE PHOTO: EU leaders summit in Brussels
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels on July 17, 2020.John Thys / Pool via Reuters, file

LGBTQ advocates view the proposals, which are expected to pass next month, as yet another assault by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing party, Fidesz, which has been in power since 2010 and maintains a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

A new constitution enacted in 2012 defines marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman and asserts that the traditional family is “the basis of the survival of the nation.”

Gay people “can do what they want, but they cannot get their marriages recognized by the state,” Orbán said in 2016 interview. “An apple cannot ask to be called a pear.”

In 2019, the speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, László Kövér, compared same-sex couples wanting to adopt or marry to pedophiles. “Morally, there is no difference,” said Kövér, a founding member of Fidesz and a close ally of Orbán.

Senior party officials even called for a boycott of Coca-Cola when it launched an LGBTQ-inclusive ad campaign that summer. In May, the government reversed regulations allowing transgender and intersex citizens to change the gender listed on legal documents. The new regulations redefined the word “nem” — which in Hungarian can mean either “sex” or “gender” — to refer specifically to a person’s biological sex at birth “based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes.”

The law puts trans and intersex people “at risk of harassment, discrimination, and even violence in daily situations when they need to use identity documents,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Another new proposal would abolish the Equal Treatment Authority, an autonomous agency tasked with investigating discrimination based on sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and other factors.

Some responsibilities would be taken over by the commissioner for fundamental rights, Ákos Kozma, an Orbán loyalist who’s been largely silent on LGBTQ issues. ILGA-Europe, a leading European rights group, said the sole purpose of transferring control to Kozma is to “reduce the efficacy” of anti-discrimination policies.

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These measures come as Hungary, like the rest of the world, is battling a deadly pandemic. Tamás Dombos, a board member for the Hatter Society, Hungary’s oldest and largest gay rights group, said the timing is strategic.

“Now the debate focuses on this issue rather than how bad the government is handling the pandemic or the changes they want to make to the electoral process,” Dombos told NBC News. “They create this noise so the opposition can’t focus on one issue.”

The ban on legal recognition of transgender people was passed just as the pandemic’s first wave hit Hungary. To date, the country of 9.8 million has reported 157,000 cases of Covid-19 and 3,380 deaths.

“The government has used the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to grab unlimited power and is using Parliament to rubber-stamp problematic nonpublic-health-related bills,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement Thursday.

The new amendments were presented on Nov. 10, the same day Parliament voted to extend a coronavirus-related state of emergency that Orbán had declared a week earlier.

Not only do they further stigmatize transgender people and same-sex couples raising children, Dombos said, they also make outreach to LGBTQ youth nearly impossible.

But the attacks on the LGBTQ community aren’t limited to the corridors of the Hungarian Parliament. “A Fairy Tale for Everyone,” a Hungarian children’s book with well-known tales incorporating gay people and other marginalized groups, was met with a barrage of homophobic vitriol when it was published in September. A leading Fidesz politician tore apart a copy page by page at a news conference, and a petition demanding it be removed from stores garnered more than 85,000 signatures.

Talking about the book on a Budapest radio show, Orbán said the LGBTQ community should “leave our children alone.”

“Hungarians are patient and tolerant” of homosexuality, he said. “We also tolerate provocation well, but there is a red line that cannot be crossed.”

The book’s authors, Dorottya Redai and Boldizsár Nagy, said they were disturbed by Orbán’s rhetoric. “When a prime minister says something like this … others will think they can also,” they told Time magazine.

Dombos said while he hasn’t seen physical violence, people on the street are getting more vocal. “Now you get called names. They shout, ‘Hey f—-t!’ That never happened before,” he said. “They feel encouraged now.”

Last month, Redai told Time that a large poster declaring, “Homosexual propaganda publication, which is dangerous for children, is sold here,” was draped outside a bookstore selling “A Fairy Tale for Everyone.”

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EU launches LGBTQ protection strategy as homophobia rises in east

Even a cosmopolitan city like Budapest, one of the first in Eastern Europe to hold a Pride march, hasn’t been immune. In August, a rainbow flag displayed outside City Hall was ripped down and thrown in the garbage.

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Előd Novák, party leader of the extremist group Mi Hazánk, took credit for the vandalism, declaring that the “anti-family symbol has no place on the street.”

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony had been the first to fly the symbol of the LGBTQ community on city property.

Days earlier, nationalist football fans calling themselves Aryan Greens reportedly set fire to a Pride flag outside another municipal building and replaced it with a banner for their favorite team.

The increasing homophobia has had a chilling effect on Hungary’s LGBTQ community.

“The general strategy for people is to stay in the closet,” Dombos said. “More than half aren’t out to their family, and only about 20 percent are out at work.” It has also pushed some to leave the country.

“The reasons why people emigrate are complex, but many LGBTQ people say dealing with discrimination and homophobic language day after day was an important factor,” Dombos said. “It’s quite easy to leave within the E.U. — you can go to Germany or other European countries where the jobs are better and there’s more acceptance.”

For those who stay and fight, countering a party with two-thirds majority is difficult under normal circumstances. During the pandemic, activists can’t have demonstrations, meet with politicians or even even hold in-person gatherings.

“We try to gather online, but it’s just not the same,” Dombos said.

Just days after Hungary announced the latest proposed amendments, the European Union’s executive commission announced its first formal strategy to protect the rights of LGBTQ citizens.

“We will defend the rights of LGBT people against those who have more and more appetite to attack them from an ideological point of view,” E.U. Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said Nov. 13 at a news conference. “This belongs to the authoritarian playbook, and it does not have a place in the E.U.”

The strategy proposes adding anti-gay hate crimes to the list of offenses for which the E.U. could set minimum penalties, including terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. It would also protect the legal status of same-sex married couples in all member states and tie funding to compliance with E.U. anti-discrimination laws.

Hungary's Justice Minister Varga attends an EU General Affairs Council in Brussels
Hungary’s Justice Minister Judit Varga attends an EU General Affairs Council in Brussels on Jan. 28, 2020.Francois Lenoir / Reuters file

Varga, the justice minister, condemned the strategy on Twitter, saying Hungary would “not accept any financial threats for protecting the traditional role of family and marriage.”

In any event, the guidelines aren’t binding on member countries. When dozens of Polish cities declared themselves “LGBT-free zones,”the commission could only deny small amounts of funding to a half-dozen towns.

Orbán has forged ideological ties with Poland in rejecting what he sees as an E.U. agenda. At a World War I memorial ceremony in August, Orbán called on central Europe to unite around its Christian roots.

“Western Europe has given up on a Christian Europe,” he warned, “and instead experiments with a godless cosmos, rainbow families, migration and open societies.”

So far, Hungary’s response to European Union pressure over human rights has been to veto E.U. legislation. Last week, Hungary and Poland united to veto the E.U.’s trillion-euro budget and coronavirus recovery package, because access is linked to countries’ adherence to the rule of law and European values.

Orbán previously vetoed ratification of an E.U. treaty on violence against women and an agreement to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ people.

The prime minister, according to Dombos, enjoys the political theatrics and “likes the idea that he’s shaping the E.U.”

Fidesz actually began as a progressive, youth-oriented party in the late 1980s, Dombos added, but then the political landscape changed and the party filled the vacuum in the right-wing space.

“More and more they became extreme, with statements not just about LGBT people, but about homeless people, Roma, Jews, migrants and asylum-seekers,” Dombos said. “Their strategy is to come up with an enemy, create a campaign around it and pass a law, and then tell us how they’ve rescued us from disaster.”

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