Timbre of a TimeFree Mind

"It is simpler for me to say that I am homosexual rather than having others saying this to me," Klara Ungar of the liberal Free Democrats was quoted by local media as telling the "Strucc" TV chat show.

In 15 years since the end of communism, few prominent people in east Europe have been willing to admit they are gay and in Hungary, as in other countries in the region, the issue is still taboo.
There are no openly gay parliamentarians in Poland, the Czech Republic or Slovakia, which along with Hungary are the biggest of the 10 mostly ex-communist states which joined the European Union in May last year.

Ungar has declined to comment ahead of the TV show, but her party confirmed she was due to appear. And her confession was splashed across the front pages of Hungary's tabloids on Wednesday, with the popular Reggel newspaper asking whether anyone could vote for an openly gay member of parliament.

Mother-of-one Ungar, 46, who was a dissident under communist rule, may also find some of her fellow parliamentarians less than welcoming after her announcement. Zsolt Semjen, chairman of parliament's human rights committee and leader of the Christian Democratic People's Party, recently attacked the morals of the Free Democrats (SZDSZ), a junior coalition partner in government.

"If someone wants their teenage son to get his first sexual experience with a bearded man, they should vote for SZDSZ," Semjen said last week.

The Christian Democrats are allied with the main right-wing opposition Fidesz party of which Ungar used to be a member before it morphed into a conservative political party from a radical liberal organization.

posted by jikido  # 12:31 PM