Q Toon: The Hungary Games

You may have seen news reports about József Szájer, 59, Hungary's representative to the European Union Parliament in Brussels, getting himself arrested after police broke up a 25-man sex party above a gay bar. It wasn't the orgy per se that broke the law; the problem was that the number of men gathered exceeded COVID-19 restrictions.

I have no idea how many guys one is allowed to have at an orgy in Brussels. I suppose that's one of the things one is expected to check before traveling abroad.

The gay sex stuff is somewhat more at issue for Szájer back home in Budapest, however. Szajer is one of the founders of the ruling Fidesz Party, originally a liberal anti-communist organization, but which has veered hard to the right under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister since 2010. Criminalization of homosexuality is prominent among Orbán's policies. 

Szájer has resigned from the EU Parliament and from Fidesz. He doesn't deny being at the orgy, but does say that the ecstasy police found on him didn't belong to him. Expect him to revise and extend his remarks in order to join a long line of disgraced preachers and politicians from Ted Haggard to Andrew Gillum blaming drugs for their walk on the wild side.

Orbán wasted no time accepting Szájer's resignation, telling Magyar Nemzet, "What our fellow member József Szájer has done does not fit into the values of our political community. We will not forget and refuse his thirty years of work, but his actions are unacceptable and indefensible."

In addition to homophobia, Orbán has served up a right-wing stew of anti-immigrant legislation, obsessing over racial purity, outlawing homeless persons, stifling the press, and stacking the courts with compliant lackeys. Some of this should sound familiar to you even if you don't follow Hungarian politics.

Orbán's election in 2010 heralded a rising tide of fascism around the globe: Duda in Poland, Duterte in the Philippines, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, Trump in the U.S., and the chronic threat of Le Penisme in France.

(Le Penisme refers to the right-wing politics of Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine Le Pen. Don't be a dick.)