Chaos At Budapest Gay Pride

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Celebration turned into chaos at Budapest’s gay pride Saturday. At least ten people were hurt and forty-five arrested after gay activists and right wing haters came together on the Hungarian town’s historic streets.

The upset should come as no surprise, of course, especially considering the conservative set’s vows of violence – and those gay bombings. Still, the ferocity of the anti-pride attacks are definitely cause for pause:

About 450 people took part in the march in central Budapest when extremists began throwing explosive devices, eggs, cobblestones and bottles at police and the marchers.

Police seized chemicals and Molotov cocktails from a six-member group waiting for the demonstrators in an uninhabited flat along the route of the march.

Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the extremists gathering around the fenced-off marchers in Heroes’ Square. The demonstrators could leave the scene in a corridor leading to an underground station.

Awww. It’s like an underground railroad for the homos – only there’s no true freedom for these men and women. A report out of Vienna last week found that gays in a third of European Union nations still face widespread discrimination. Wait, wasn’t that EU thing meant to bring equal rights?

The Hungarian government, however, isn’t taking this disturbance lying down. Saying he’s had “enough” of extremist violence, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány convened with the minister of Justice to formulate a full report of this weekend’s violence. What’s more, he’s calling for an anti-extremism national rally to be held on September 6th.

According to the prime minister, the far-right agitators falsely call upon patriotism, take Hungarian symbols away from the masses, and infringe upon freedom… Gyurcsány continued that what happened on Saturday has been going on for years, that extremists disrupt people’s right to self expression.

The prime minister stated that he has had enough, and if things continue as they do, people will be afraid to go out into the streets. He added that this is not a police, gay, Jewish or Gypsy cause, but one for everyone.

Well, that’s a step in the right direction, clearly.

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