The sacking of the director of the National Museum draws opposing comments
November 9th, 2023A leftist columnist accuses the government of surrendering to the extreme right by dismissing the director. His pro-government counterpart welcomes the decision as an act in defence of Hungary’s children against harmful LGBT influence.
Explaining the firing of László L. Simon from his post as director of the National Museum in Parliament, Culture Minister János Csák said the director was unfit for the job as he failed to enforce the law prohibiting the promotion of transsexuality and homosexuality among children during the World Press Photo exhibition (See BudaPost, November 7).
On Mérce, Bence Bogatin asserts that many officials have broken incomparably more serious laws without being sacked. He mentions, among other examples, those allowing a growing number of car battery factories to operate without guaranteeing their compliance with environmental rules. As the complaint against László L. Simon came from far-right MP Dóra Dúró, Bogatin writes officials guilty of breaking the law ‘should not only be fired when Dúró asks for it,’ lest people think that Hungary is being governed by the far right.
In Magyar Nemzet, Zoltán Felföldi commends the cabinet minister for ‘putting his foot down’ and making it clear that the Child Protection Law must not be snubbed as some dead letter. What’s more, he hopes that police in Budapest and Pécs, the two cities where pride marches are held each year, will enforce the law, and ban those events as promoting transsexuality and homosexuality in a way broadly accessible for the under eighteens.