Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has described the conduct of MEP Jozsef Szajer – caught in an apparent gay orgy in Brussels – as “incompatible with our values,” after Szajer resigned from Orban’s conservative Fidesz party.
Szajer resigned from his post on Sunday, two days after police in Brussels raided a male-only orgy for breaking lockdown rules and found the MEP shimmying down a drainpipe away from the 25-man party. He issued an apology on Tuesday, calling his “misstep” “strictly personal.”
Szajer then quit Fidesz altogether, party leader Viktor Orban told the Hungarian Magyar Nemzet newspaper on Wednesday.
“The actions of our fellow deputy, Jozsef Szajer, are incompatible with the values of our political family,” Orban told the paper. “We will not forget nor repudiate his thirty years of work, but his deed is unacceptable and indefensible.”
Fidesz is a right-wing party, and prides itself on its commitment to Christian and family values. Homosexuality is not outlawed in Hungary, but same-sex marriage is forbidden. Szajer himself helped draft Hungary’s new constitution in 2011, which explicitly defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. An amendment introduced last month ensured that only straight couples could adopt children.
According to a 2019 survey, less than half of Hungary’s population think that homosexuality “should be accepted by society.” Similar attitudes exist to immigration, and Orban has counted on the votes of these social conservatives to stay in power since 2010, and earlier, between 1998 and 2002.
As such, the “gang bang” scandal was held up in western media as an example of the alleged hypocrisy of Hungary’s right wing. Within Hungary, Fidesz has attempted to downplay the story. The party released a statement calling his resignation as MEP “the only right decision,” while Justice Minister Judit Varga told reporters that after the resignation, “all the rest is his personal matter.”
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