Yesterday, on June 12th, at the opening ceremony for the 16th Budapest Pride Festival, Sándor Steigler, the president of the festival’s organizers the Rainbow Mission Foundation, spoke the following words about the heart-shaped cockades, combining rainbow and Hungarian national colors, which were pinned to the chests of those present:

“...the Parliament has adopted a Basic Law which discriminates against and restricts the rights of lesbian and gay people, and even conceals the fact that in this country lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people too live, exist, work, and love. We can only hope that in the course of further legislation, the so-called fundamental laws will not constrain our rights even further - and we must unite to make sure this does not occur. The symbol of that unity is this cockade, uniting the rainbow and the Hungarian national colors, which everyone who can should wear as long as LGBT people do not have equal rights in Hungary!”

The message of this cockade is for everyone: that whether someone is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) or not, she/he should be able to accept both her/himself and others. The acceptance and understanding of diversity is one of the fundamental principles of a healthy society.

Hungarianness cannot mean an exclusionary system of values. We must learn to live together, accept ourselves with pride, and learn to deal with the diversities and the minorities.

This is the future.

We want a prejudice-free country, and for everyone to truly be equal.

Let us wear this cockade proudly every day of the year! Let us be part of a movement; to rejoice in the fact that everyone is different! Don’t wait for things to change by themselves - work to make them change!

Let us do wonder; we are capable of it!