Hungary's under fire after last weekend's deplorable gay pride attacks.

Those attacks, sparked by right wing extremists, garnered ire from the European Parliament's gay intergroup, who have pledged to bring Hungary before the European Commission.

While most governments would simply claim they couldn't control the masses, Hungarian state secretary yesterday admitted that the secret service knew who would instigate the attacks, yet did nothing to protect their gay citizens. Nice!

Meanwhile, Hungarian Member of European Parliament Katalin Lévai, whose car was attacked during the near riot, also vowed to right the right's wrongs…

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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.

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Budapest's police chief just loves to rain on a lavender parade.

Dr. Gábor Tóth declared last night that he and his team won't allow the city's gay pride. Why? Because it will interfere with traffic - or something like that. And the homos ain't having it and activist groups released a joint statement decrying the "good" doctor's edict:

“The march is planned to proceed in one of the central streets of Budapest, Andrássy, the site of several earlier LGBT marches and other demonstrations,” the joint statement said.

“In our opinion and experience dating back several years, the march that takes up half of the broad road does not hinder the light Saturday afternoon traffic to an extent that would warrant its banning. Thus the reason given by the police seems only a pretext to make the march impossible, similar to Poland or Russia.

In other words, Tóth's decision amounts to homophobic bullshit.

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• Fashion Island!

• Terrorists target gay Parisian mayor Bertrand Delanoe; police probing.

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Hungary's recently founded neo-Nazi group may have to close up hateful shop. Budapest's prosecutor filed a request to ban Magyar Garda, which regularly rails against gays, Jews and Roma.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said the group was guilty of generating fear among minority groups, specifically the Roma, who make up 5% of the Hungarian population.

"Freedom of association cannot get in the way of another's rights or freedom," he said.

Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany once described the politically-connected group as "the disgrace of Hungary and Hungarian democracy". And the rest of humanity.

There may soon be some happy happy homos in Hungary. The government's currently debating the next step for gay rights legislation. Left-leaning politicos are reportedly holding talks on how to bring gay citizens into the cultural and social fray. Right-wing leaders, however, are vowing to oppose any measure, which comes after last week's Parliamentary committee voted not to hear the marriage matter. 365Gay delves deep:

Hungary's left-of-center coalition government is reportedly considering legislation that would give limited rights to same-sex couples.
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[Free Democratic Party] member Peter Gusztos said denying property and inheritance rights to same-sex couples was discriminatory. A member of a Budapest LGBT rights group compared laws limiting rights to opposite-sex married couples to the country's anti-Jewish laws of the latek 1930s.

The majority Socialist Party said that society is not yet ready for such a step and pointed to a recent court ruling that upheld the current law.

What prompted the change in attitude by the government is not known, but the country has been prodded by the European Union to recognize gay and lesbian relationships.

And when the EU prods, small, post-socialist states listen. They don't always do the right thing, but they listen…

"I cannot be intimidated," said gay Hungarian State Secretary Gabor Szetey after two radio hosts posted a picture of him dressed like an Auschwitz nazi. The shock jocks apparently thought it funny, but weren't laughing after the station's owners sacked them.

A Hungarian radio station on Wednesday fired two staff members after a gay government official was depicted on its Web site standing outside the Auschwitz concentration camp wearing a pink triangle, the symbol used by the Nazis to label homosexual men.
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The owners and managers of Lanchid Radio condemn what happened and apologize to State Secretary Gabor Szetey and to everyone who was offended by the picture in question," the radio station said in a statement.

The imagery's especially startling considering the founding of a new anti-gay, fascist paramilitary.

Addressing the Szetey shenanigans, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany warned his people: "Fascists are gathering. They aren't knocking on doors but are here among us."

Things may soon get hairy for Hungary's homos.

A little over a month after right-wingers stunk up gay pride, freshly formed paramilitary group Magyar Garda inducted its first members.

Founded by Jobbik party leader Gabor Vona, Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard) promises to provide a "true transition," which, judging from their anti-gay, anti-Roma, anti-Jew stance, won't bode well for the European nation.

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• Focus on the Family, Southern Baptist Convention and other conservative groups (pictured above) are already pleading their case to the American Psychological Association, which will be conferring on reparative therapy. The groups penned a letter reading, "We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual." These people have some fucked up value systems.

• Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky thinks anti-pride homophobes are ""intolerant, primitive and cowardly." Word up. Oh, and his party, The Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), want a parliamentary coalition against homophobia. Double word up.

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About 200 Croatian queers and their admirers ignored shouts, jeers and scowls as they marched through Zagreb. Despite a roughly equal police presence, about ten participants were injured by flying objects. Authorities arrested eight violent anti-gay protesters Saturday afternoon, including five who may have had Molotov cocktails.

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Hungarian politico Gábor Szetey grabbed some ink after coming out at Budapest's queer film fest.

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