Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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   “The curriculum had already drawn tensions among the county’s religious parents, with some worrying about appropriateness and arguing the material…

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   As someone who produced dozens of nativity plays as a teacher and a Sunday School leader, that title ‘A Gay…

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   The defence of a Christian view never seems to be settled by debate: exchange of facts, reference to historical events.…

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   But …… Rwanda is a safe place: Parliament says so.https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/8/contentsSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 S 2 Safety…

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   Religion can survive only on the most unquestionable assumptions. The statements made on Sundays on the BBC as if they…

UNDER the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, above, a pro-Russian member of the Calvinist Hungarian Reformed Church, the country has increasingly found itself at loggerheads with the values of the E.U.

The latest manifestation of Orbán’s hostility to the E.U. took place in Transylvania, Romania, last week where he accused the the E.U. of attacking “the family-friendly nations of Europe”—especially with its pro-LGBT+ agenda.

Wiki reports that, since his election as P.M. in 2010, Orbán has led initiatives and laws to hinder human rights of LGBT+ people, regarding such rights as “not compatible with Christian values.”

In 2020, Orbán’s government ended legal recognition of transgender people, receiving criticism both in Hungary and abroad.

In 2021 his party proposed legislation to censor any “LGBT+ positive content” in movies, books or public advertisements and to severely restrict sex education in school forbidding any information thought to “encourage gender change or homosexuality”.

The law has been likened to Russia’s restriction on “homosexual propaganda.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen harshly criticised the law, while a letter from sixteen EU leaders including Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Italy’s Mario Draghi warned against “threats against fundamental rights and in particular the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation”.

In reporting on Hungary’s mounting displeasure with the E.U. Christianity Today pointed out in 2020 that Orbán has long said he was proudly building an “illiberal” Christian democracy.

If Hungary is so pissed off with the E.U. why doesn’t it ape the U.K. and simply walk away?

The question arose on Quora earlier this year. I homed in on a reply by Romanian resident Alice Calin, which was upvoted by 351 readers. She wrote:

Just imagine the prices skyrocketing for all their imported goods … They’d have cheap gas but nothing to cook on their stove. I bet Orban’s voters will be really happy then. The Brexit mess would be nothing compared to Hexit.

Also imagine if, as some threaten, Hungary got even closer to Russia and support their war efforts against Ukraine. Imagine the EU imposing sanctions on Hungary, or closing its airspace to Hungarian aircraft.

Hungary would be brought to its knees in no time, the population would guillotine Orban and his thugs and would be begging to be allowed to rejoin the EU. That would take years to happen, during which the Hungarian population would experience famine.

The EU does NOT need Hungary for anything except for continuity. …. Hungary does not *have* anything the EU wants or couldn’t live without. On the contrary, it is more and more of an inconvenience. Its geographical position is its only strength but also its greatest weakness.

Calin wasn’t hyperbolising when she referred to food shortages and the “Brexit mess”.

Earlier this year The Guardian reported that British households have paid £7-bn since Brexit to cover the extra cost of trade barriers on food imports from the E.U, according to researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE).

The university’s latest report estimating the impact of leaving the bloc on UK food prices found that trade barriers were consistently hampering imports, pushing up bills by an average £250.

The cost of food in the UK had rocketed by 25 percent since 2019, the researchers calculated, but if the post-Brexit trade restrictions were not in place then this increase would be only 17 percent—almost a third lower.

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