Hungary Gay Pride Lifted by Coming Out, Marred by Violence

The streets of Budapest, Hungary grew tense over the weekend as a crowd reported at 2,000 marched in the city’s annual Gay Pride parade. A group of protestors threw mineral water, eggs, and sacks filled with sand at the marchers, injuring some. The violence lead to the arrest of eight people

Caboodle reports: “The counter-demonstrators followed the procession of some 2,000 gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites and their supporters on three trucks and on foot from Heroes’ Square to the Danube. The situation grew more tense at 6 p.m. when the parade got stuck outside the Buddha Beach bar on the Danube, because no one had the key. Marchers and counter-demonstrators were jammed together on Közraktár utca, but police restored order…

…Gays were attacked in several places in the hours following the procession. A German man received the worst blow in Pipa utca in the Ninth District, when assailants struck him on the head with a beer bottle.”

Gays in Hungary were given extra support in the lead-up to this weekend’s Gay pride festival when its first elected official, Gábor Szetey, a member of the Socialist Party, came out at the opening of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Film and Cultural Festival.

Said Szetey: “My name is Gábor Szetey. I am the personnel state secretary of the government of the Republic of Hungary. I believe in God, love, freedom and equality. I am Hungarian and European. I am an economist and a personnel leader. I am a partner, a friend, sometimes an opponent. And I am gay.”