Yet another gay scandal involving an anti-gay figure

Liberty Bridge in Budapest, Hungary / photo by Sara Varga

This one involves an orgy, fleeing through a window, and ultimately shattering quarantine rules. The hypocrisy… 

An openly homophobic, Hungarian politician resigned from the European Council on Sunday after he was caught by police fleeing a 25-man orgy in Brussels. 

József Szàjer, amongst other prominent diplomats who have since claimed immunity, was interrupted at a “private party” breaching Belgium’s lockdown restrictions, including a curfew and a four-person maximum limit on indoor gatherings.  

The spokeswoman for Brussels’ public prosecutor’s office, Sarah Durant, said that police turned up last Friday after a neighbour reported a noise complaint and a potential violation of COVID-19 regulations. 

Szàjer was spotted by a bystander climbing down a drainpipe. With bloody hands and a backpack feebly hiding ecstasy, he was apprehended and asked to identify himself. Unable to provide any documents, he was escorted to his home where it came to fruition he was one of the founding members of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party—who bases their legislature on marriage being shared solely between a man and a woman. 

French MEP Manon Aubry told Euronews: “He is enjoying the freedom of LGBTI community here in Brussels and at the same time, his party is condemning the LGBTI community back in Hungary. He was even one of the main writers of the constitution that criminalises that community in Hungary.”

Szàjer said: “I apologize to my family, to my colleagues, to my voters.”

Much like the infamous, cliché, and many accounts of eminent political and religious officers turning out to be homosexual, it seems like a long-standing trend in the most homophobic leaders in the world is to be caught implicated in same-sex scandals. 

Take, for example, the tired and true tale of Keith O’Brien. Once the most high-ranking member of the Catholic Church in the UK and endowed the title “Bigot of the Year” from the Stonewall Charity, he resigned in 2013 after accusers compiled over 33 years of reports of him making inappropriate advances on them after nighttime prayers. 

Or Carlos Divar. Working as the president of the Supreme Court in Spain, he constantly expressed conservative philosophy–even boasting that divine justice was more objective than human justice. In 2012, he resigned after it was revealed he used taxpayer money to repeatedly travel to luxury hotels abroad to meet up with the same long-term male escort. 

According to the Scientific American Journal and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, when homosexual urges are repressed out of shame or fear, the resulting expression will be homophobia as an internal battle within oneself causes that person to lash out at others. It’s like a twisted version of envy— seeing all these other people able to express themselves without the pressure and baggage of contending the ideals which they were brought up in.

The Northern Irish politician Ken Maginnis, who sits as a life peer, may be suspended from the House of Lords for at least 18 months following “homophobic and offensive language” against four people.

Maginnis even refuses to take part in behaviour training saying: “At 83 years of age, I’m not going to be dictated to in this way.”

The House of Lords will make a decision on 7 December whether to enforce the ban.

Words: Maelina Hassel | Subbing: Kristina Hristova 

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