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MTV Defends Its Decision To Host the MTV Europe Music Awards In Hungary, Despite New Anti-LGBTQ Laws

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(CelebrityAccess) — MTV announced it plans to move forward with plans to hold the MTV Europe Music Awards in Hungary on November 14th, despite the country’s recent passage of controversial legislation that undermines LGBTQ rights.

The former music broadcaster defended its decision to continue holding the awards in Budapest next month with Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of MTV Entertainment Group Worldwide telling the Associated Press that MTV will use the event to demonstrate their solidarity with Hungary’s LGBTQ community.

“We’re looking forward to using the event to amplify our voices and stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ siblings,” McCarthy told the Associated Press.

He went on to state that MTV would not allow censorship of artists at the event.

“We’ve made it very clear and we have from the beginning…. we do not allow editorial input as it relates to the artists,” McCarthy told the AP. “That’s always a condition regardless of whatever country we go into.”

The new legislation, which went into effect in July, is meant to protect children from sexual predators but opponents claim that it conflates being gay with pedophilia.

The law also prohibits “homosexual and transexual propaganda” to minors, effectively erasing the LGBTQ community from participating in health education in schools or other aspect of public life.

As well, a change to the nation’s constitution that went into effect in December, altered the definition of families to exclude transgender and other LGBT individuals, declaring that in families “the mother is a woman and the father is a man.”

The changes under Hungary’s conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have put the nation at odds with much of the European Union and the EU’s parliament have already launched “rule of law” action that may result in Hungary losing its voting rights.


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