(ANSA-AFP) - BUDAPEST, SEP 24 - Hungarian nationalist Prime
Minister Viktor Orban underscored family values and slammed the
LGBTQ and gender "lobby" on Thursday at a biennial demographic
summit attended by Western conservative leaders in Budapest that
cements Hungary's reputation as a bastion of conservatism in the
European Union.
First held in 2015, the so-called Budapest Demographic Summit
takes place every two years to rail against migration and urge
Christian couples to have more children. Among the first
speakers at the two-day forum was former US vice president Mike
Pence, who served under Donald Trump. Pence urged western
nations "to renew and preserve our families on which our
civilisations have been built". "Strong families make strong
communities and strong communities make strong nations," he
said, calling on governments to "put families first". Praising
Orban for introducing tax exemptions for mothers of four or
more, Pence blasted China for "decades of abuses in the name of
population control" under its one-child policy. Orban, in turn,
said "Hungary must defend itself because the western left-wing
is attacking". "It is trying to relativise the notion of family,
its tools for doing so are gender ideology and the LGBTQ lobby,
which are attacking our children," he told the forum, also
attended by the heads of state of the Czech Republic, Slovenia
and Serbia. (ANSA-AFP).
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