A Hungarian lawmaker who is strongly
opposed to LGBT rights has resigned after he was arrested trying to
flee a gay sex party in Brussels.
According to the
AP, Hungarian MP József
Szájer, who is married to
a woman, admitted that he attended the party. More than 20 men,
including several diplomats, attended the party, which violated local
coronavirus lockdown regulations.
Police
arrested Szájer as he attempted to flee the party by sliding
down a gutter on the building. Belgian media reports that authorities
found drugs in Szájer's backpack after he was arrested.
Several outlets reported that some men
at the party zipped down their pants when the police arrived,
thinking this was part of a show.
Szájer, 59, is a founding member of
Hungary's right-wing Fidesz party. He stepped down on Sunday.
Investigative journalist Szabolcs
Panyi said that Szájer's arrest was important because “while
he was enjoying himself in LGBT-friendly Brussels, he made life for
LGBT people in Hungary miserable by rewriting the constitution.”
Panyi described Szájer as the “legal
architect of [Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán's
regime.” Szájer's draft of Hungary's constitution defined marriage
as a heterosexual union. “[The constitution] became the legal
justification for Viktor Orbán's
culture war,” Panyi tweeted.
Tamás
Dombos of the Háttér
Society, a Hungarian LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington
Blade that Szájer had spoken out against the government's
anti-LGBT crackdown, just not loud enough.
“He was trying to do what he could
within the framework, but he wasn't courageous enough to come out
personally and he was never courageous enough to say, if you're going
forward with this homophobic and transphobic agenda, then I'm
quitting the party,” Dombos
said. “He never did that, so he was a coward.”