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| People take part in the annual Pride festival in Budapest, Hungary July 6 |
Advertisements by Coca-Cola around a music festival in Hungary that promote gay acceptance have prompted a boycott call from a senior member of the conservative ruling party.
The posters, in tandem with the week-long โLove Revolutionโ event starting on Wednesday in Budapest, show gay people and couples smiling with slogans like โzero sugar, zero prejudiceโ.
That has irked some supporters of Viktor Orbanโs nationalist Fidesz party, which supports a prohibition of same-sex marriage.
On Sunday, Fideszโs deputy speaker Istvan Boldog called for a boycott of Coca-Cola products during its โprovocativeโ campaign.
Right-wing news portals echoed his antipathy.
โThe homosexual lobby is laying siege to Budapest, leaving no space to avoid this,โ complained one, Pesti Sracok.
Orban, who rails against immigrants, promotes โethnic homogeneityโ and seeks to protect Europeโs Christian traditions, opposes equal rights to same-sex couples while also advocating quiet gay-straight co-existence.
Coca-Cola said on Monday the Sziget festival, expected to draw more than half a million people, echoes core principles of the U.S. multinational. โWe believe both hetero- and homosexuals have the right to love the person they want the way they want,โ it said in a statement.
โTHEY NEED ENEMIESโ
Fidesz stopped short of endorsing Boldogโs boycott call, saying Hungarians were free to choose whether to drink Coke.
Tamas Dombos, an advocate with the Hatter gay rights group, said the government was homophobic but also aware of societyโs growing acceptance of gay lifestyles.
โWe have a feeling they are testing people in this subject,โ he told Reuters. โThe entire government propaganda is built on conflict, and they need enemies. After the EU, migrants, NGOs and even the homeless, now it may be LGBTQ people.โ
โSometimes itโs hard to dissect whether itโs a political strategy or just an inherent real homophobe getting mad at something like Cokeโs campaign.โ
According to a 2018 Hatter study, nearly two-thirds of Hungarians believe gay people should be free to live as they please, up from less than half in 2002.
Gay rights have caused more of a stir in Poland, where ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, a Fidesz ally, has launched an anti-gay campaign in an apparent attempt to re-energise its mainly rural base. One conservative magazine distributed โLGBT-free zoneโ stickers and some towns have declared themselves โLGBT-freeโ.
In Hungary, the parliament speaker this year said gay adoption was tantamount to โpaedophilia in a moral senseโ.
Orban has rarely addressed the issue head on, though in a 2016 interview he said gay people โcan do what they want but cannot get their marriages recognised by the stateโฆ An apple cannot ask to be called a pear.โ
REUTERS
