Hungarian authorities have fined a bookseller for selling a British graphic novel without closed wrapping - saying it breached a controversial law on LGBT literature for under-18s.
The Lira Kiskereskedelmi Kft retailer was fined 12m forints (£27,400) for selling a Heartstopper book without wrapping it in plastic foil. Officials said the book depicted homosexuality and was sold to minors. The love story, about two teenage boys, has been made into a Netflix series.
It is a shame that such crap is being practiced in Europe. As if anyone was ever harmed by such books.
As if anyone was ever harmed by such books.
Children’s literature can still be judged on its pedagogical merits. Not all books are good, and that’s why we have book reviews and experts writing recommendations for which books can be worthy additions to the school curriculum.
Heartstopper happens to be a work with quite high pedagogical merit because it approaches sensitive issues with tenderness, age-appropriateness and responsibility (especially when medical themes are explored in the story).
But some books can be potentially harmful and they shouldn’t be read by children still learning about the world, especially if they don’t have access to other reliable sources of information to counterbalance the bad information of some books.
To talk from personal experience, when I was growing up as a young gay teenager in a conservative country where there was no sex education in schools (at all, not even straight sex education) and no public real or fictional healthy models of queer relationships available, my only source of representation was yaoi manga that seemed to end up in the general comics book section of a chain bookstore. Even the non-pornographic manga did give me extremely harmful ideas about how relationship dynamics between two men might look like, both romantically and sexually. I did suffer real harm later on when as an older teenager I began dating, and the contribution of reading bad representation is not trivial to that.
For my younger self, I wish that I did have access to good books like Heartstopper, and someone informed enough to tell me that I shouldn’t be reading the bad books until I was mature enough to understand why they are bad and how healthy relationships look like.
Hungary’s law of course doesn’t care about queer youth getting access to good books and avoiding bad books. Hungary’s law just wants queer youth to disappear.
Do these people actually believe kids will turn gay if they read about homosexuality? 😂
That’s just their excuse, until they get outed for lying, then they move the goalpost to “parents’ rights”. Their real reasons are:
- cruelty and hatred.
- disgust.
- their ideology is losing ground, especially due to "exposure therapy. So what if they made it harder to access, all while labelling such acts as “harmful to minors”?
I don’t know, I am too straight to read.
Contains spoilers for Heartstopper!
That sucks so much, because Heartstopper is really extremely wholesome. Aside from the LGBTQ storylines, it also deals with mental health issues, eating disorders (of a male teenager, which is a neglected topic), bullying and problems that come with growing up. I think many young people can find comfort and representation in these books, no matter which sexual orientation or gender. These laws actively hurt the people they claim to protect.
Edit: Just realised some of this might be a spoiler and added a warning. Does anyone know how to add spoiler tags in Liftoff? I have a feeling it might not be possible yet.
Much stronger action against the Hungarian regime should be taken at European level, it’s really a Putin’s trojan horse. I fear that after the next European elections it will be even harder for that to happen as the far-right will probably grow even further. Democracy diggs its own grave when it allows tirants to start burning books.
Reminder that the age of consent in Hungary is 14, with the only limitation being if the older person is a teacher or a mentor of the minor. This horrible homophobic law was a response to civil rights groups asking questions about it, alongside with covering up the Kaleta controversy (Gábor Kaleta was not only bought home to get away with way less severe punishments, but also only got a pathetic amount in fines).
Are there similar restrictions on straight romance? If not, that says something.
No, and there’s some play for kids that is an outright straight propaganda.
You don’t like a product? You don’t buy it for you or for your kids as long as you materially provide for them. The company which sells it goes bankrupt and that’s it. No need for prosecuting / banning by law the ideologies you don’t like. As simple as that. Otherwise you are implicitly admitting you are wrong.
You don’t like a product? You don’t buy it for you or for your kids as long as you materially provide for them.
It’s not as simple. As we see from the US (but also to a tamer extend in some EU regions including in the bible-belts of western member states), even if the “market freedom” argument is established and there’s no doubt about the right to sell children’s literature with queer characters, those “concerned parents” move the goalpost to the school system (assigned reading in language classes) and libraries.
The argument that must be had is not about free markets, but about a child’s inalienable right to develop their personality outside the control of their parents. The statement “children do not belong to their parents” remains a controversial one. In one country I am familiar with, “our children belong to us, so the school does not have a right to talk to them about things we do not approve” is now being used against the introduction of (straight-only) sex education.
It’s more crucial to have a discussion about whether all children should have the right to read children’s literature with queer themes, not only the children of parents who do not oppose the idea.
