BUDAPEST — Hungary's parliament has passed an amendment to the constitution that allows the government to ban public events by LGBTQ+ communities, a decision that legal scholars and critics are calling another step toward authoritarianism.

The amendment, which required a two-thirds vote, passed along party lines with 140 votes for and 21 against.

It was proposed by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The amendment declares that children's rights to moral, physical and spiritual development supersede any right other than the right to life, including the right to peacefully assemble.

The amendment codifies a law fast-tracked through parliament in March that bans public events held by LGBTQ+ communities, including the popular Pride event in Budapest that draws thousands of visitors annually.

That law also allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify people who attend prohibited events and can come with fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints (€481).

Ahead of the vote, the final step for the amendment, opposition politicians and other protesters attempted to blockade the entrance to one of parliament’s parking garages.

Police physically removed demonstrators, who had used zip ties to bind themselves together.

Dávid Bedő, a lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party who participated in the attempted blockade, said before the vote that Orbán and Fidesz for the past 15 years "have been dismantling democracy and the rule of law and in the past two or three months, we see that this process has been sped up."

He said as elections approach in 2026 and Orbán's party lags in the polls behind a popular new challenger from the opposition, "they will do everything in their power to stay in power."

Opposition lawmakers used air horns to disrupt the vote, which continued after a few moments.

Hungary's government has campaigned against LGBTQ+ communities in recent years, and argues its child protection policies, which forbid the availability to minors of any material that mentions homosexuality, are needed to protect children from what it calls "woke ideology" and "gender madness."

Critics say the measures do little to protect children and are being used to distract from more serious problems facing the country and mobilize Orbán's right-wing base ahead of elections.

"This whole endeavor which we see launched by the government, it has nothing to do with children's rights," said Dánel Döbrentey, a lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, dismissing it as "pure propaganda."

The new amendment also states that the constitution recognizes two sexes, male and female, an expansion of an earlier amendment that prohibits same-sex adoption by stating that a mother is a woman and a father is a man.

The declaration provides a constitutional basis for denying the gender identities of transgender people, as well as ignoring the existence of intersex individuals who are born with sexual characteristics that do not align with binary conceptions of male and female.

In a statement on Monday, government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács wrote that the change is "not an attack on individual self-expression, but a clarification that legal norms are based on biological reality."

Lawyer Dánel Döbrentey said it was "a clear message" for transgender and intersex people: "It is definitely and purely and strictly about humiliating people and excluding them, not just from the national community, but even from the community of human beings."

The amendment also allows for Hungarians who hold dual citizenship in a non-European Economic Area country to have their citizenship suspended for up to 10 years if they are deemed to pose a threat to public order, public security or national security.

Hungary has taken steps in recent months to protect its national sovereignty from what it claims are foreign efforts to influence its politics or even topple Orbán's government.

The self-described "illiberal" leader has accelerated his longstanding efforts to crack down on critics such as media outlets and groups devoted to civil rights and anti-corruption, which he says have undermined Hungary's sovereignty by receiving financial assistance from international donors.

In a speech last month, Orbán compared people who work for such groups to insects and pledged to "eliminate the entire shadow army" of foreign-funded "politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists." — Euronews