Routing or Rerouting Europe? The Civilizational Mission of Anti-Gender Politics in Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

The European Union is often seen as a bulwark of progressive values, including LGBTI rights. By restricting such rights, politicians thus appear to reject the EU’s fundamental principles. This paper argues, however, that anti-gender politics is often a surprisingly pro-European phenomenon. Many of its practitioners rebuff accusations of Euroskepticism. For them, rights restrictions are less an attempt to reject European integration than to redirect its trajectory. They aim to reconnect the EU with Europe’s civilizational roots. The paper illustrates this argument by analyzing the discourse actors have used to justify anti-gender policies in three countries: Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia.

Introduction

On November 26, 2019, the European Parliament (EP) debated a resolution on public discrimination and hate speech against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. The immediate cause for this debate was the proliferation of so-called “LGBT-free zones” (strefy wolne od LGBT) across Polish municipalities, counties, and even voivodeships. In February 2020, a report revealed that more than a third of the country had declared itself to be free from “gender ideology” and “homosexual propaganda” (Ciobanu 2020).¹ Deeply perturbed by this development, a cross-party coalition of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called for the urgent protection of European values. Their resolution called upon the European Commission and the Council to “use all the tools and procedures at their disposal to ensure the full and proper application of Treaty principles and values” (European Parliament 2019). The text’s central message was clear: discrimination against LGBTI people constituted an intolerable assault on the core values of the European Union (EU). The European Parliament would not stand for this, because it sees these values as the cornerstone of European cooperation. A Member State may therefore not chisel away at the normative basis for European integration.²

The MEPs who voted in favor of the resolution are hardly alone in equating the restriction of sexual minority rights with the repudiation of European values. Take the following concern voiced by ILGA-Europe, the European-level organization advocating for the rights of LGBTI people:

The erosion of the human rights of LGBTI people along with the rise of anti-LGBTI hate rhetoric in countries across Europe is putting European democracy at risk and eroding core principles of the European Union—human rights, equality, freedom and human dignity. (ILGA-Europe 2020)

That progressive actors frame their apprehension over the recent challenges in terms of European values is perhaps unsurprising. After all, since the early 1990s, LGBTI rights have gradually become a “powerful symbol of Europe” (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014, 3; Eigenmann 2021).

Many socially conservative politicians, however, also link the fight against “gender ideology” to the EU. This linkage is frequently on display during pride marches. For example, Agnès Chetaille (2013) describes how the All-Polish Youth, the (former) youth wing of the League of Polish Families, the major governing party in Poland, reacted to pride festivities by organizing “Normality Marches.” Participants sang chants denouncing “Euro-Sodom” during these protests. When Petras Gražulis crashed a Baltic Pride event, the Lithuanian politician claimed he was “ashamed that the rotten West, coming from the European Union that is morally corrupted, propagates this [LGBTI rights] to Lithuania and tells us how we should treat homosexuals” (Digrytė 2012). Russia has actively promoted the notion of “Gayropa,” which anti-LGBTI voices across the continent have eagerly appropriated (Foxall 2019; Riabov and Riabova 2014; Shevtsova 2020). An online petition against the EP’s Lunacek Report, on an EU roadmap to combat homophobia and discrimination against LGBTI people, visualized the supposed symbiosis between LGBTI rights and European values: as same-sex couples, all bizarrely clad in swimwear, are sheltered under the EU’s umbrella, traditional families are quite literally left in the rain (CitizenGo Europe 2014). Resistance to LGBTI rights and European integration thus go hand in hand. In sum, “both proponents and opponents of European integration agree that norms governing LGBT rights have become part of the symbolic set of values that define the idea of contemporary Europe” (Ayoub and Paternotte 2019, 56).

This article argues, however, that a third perspective on the relationship between LGBTI rights and EU values should be taken seriously. In this vision, opposition to the former need not imply opposition to the latter. While anti-EU and homophobic words are occasionally uttered in the same breath, this usually only happens at the fringes of the political spectrum. Those with extreme views employ extreme language. This is the case for the All-Polish Youth, Petras Gražulis, and the anonymous blog of Agenda Europe. Yet, extremists have little to do with the aforementioned “erosion of the human rights of LGBTI people” that ILGA-Europe (2020) observes. This process is instead taking place at the hands of socially conservative parties that belong to the political mainstream. To label their rhetoric as anti-European might seem appealing to LGBTI people and their allies, but it would be a gross mischaracterization.

Instead, I claim that many restrictions of LGBTI rights are less an attempt to reject European values tout court than to reject a particular articulation of these values. European values resemble “floating signifiers” (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, 113). Such signifiers are “overflowed with meaning” because they are “articulated differently within different discourses” (Torfing 1999, 301). That is to say, the term “EU values” has no fixed meaning; it is open to multiple, possibly contradictory interpretations. Such ambiguity may spark a hegemonic struggle in which political adversaries vie to make their definition of the signifier the dominant one. As Jules Townshend (2004, 270) summarizes, “hegemony involves competition between different political forces to get maximum support for, or identification with, their definition of ‘floating signifiers.’”

Contemporary efforts to restrict LGBTI rights can be read in this light. Indeed, the protagonists of anti-gender politics often employ surprisingly pro-European language. Except for the homophobia emanating from the fringes, the clash between proponents and opponents of LGBTI rights is in fact a hegemonic battle over the true meaning of European values. Progressive actors see the EU as a bulwark of fundamental rights for all, irrespective of one’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Their conservative adversaries, however, dispute this close association between EU values and LGBTI rights. They argue that the liberals’ overinclusive vision has steered the Union off its course and even charge that Europe’s civilizational identity is at stake. The objective for conservative leaders therefore is not to rout European values, but to reroute the European project back to its Christian origins. The anti-gender agenda should usher in this return to the “true” Europe. This argument concurs with Phillip M. Ayoub and David Peternotte’s observation that “Europe means many things for LGBT rights depending on how it is imagined” (Ayoub and Paternotte 2019), but applies it to the detractors of these rights rather than to their supporters. The article’s main claim is thus that many social conservatives practice anti-gender politics not in order to reject the EU altogether, but in order to articulate an alternative vision of this very Union.

First, however, it is important to settle a definitional matter. The term “conservatism” comes in different guises, many of which suffer from internal contradictions (see Alexander 2013). This paper emphasizes the social dimension of conservatism, in line with Ov Cristian Norocel’s notion of the conservative right continuum. “The common denominator of this ideological continuum,” as Norocel (2018, 44) argues, “is the constitutive parties’ positions towards the feminist project, emphasizing the ‘natural’ basis of the heterosexual nuclear family, and not least its biological unity.” I thus take conservatives to denote those actors who seek to defend traditional family values, with “a male-centered, nuclear household model” at their base (Luehrmann 2019, 776), against the perceived threat of sexual diversity and gender ideology. Importantly, this definition sets conservatism apart from Christian Democracy; although Christian Democratic parties may be socially conservative, as the case studies illustrate, the defense of the traditional family is neither exclusive nor essential to these parties.

The remainder of the article is divided into three sections. First, I situate the study within a broader context of debates over the meaning of European values. The next section specifically emphasizes the role that the meaning of “Europeanness” played during the Convention on the Future of Europe, in the discourse of Euroskeptic parties, and in the Russian promise of a “truly European” alternative to the EU’s liberal cosmopolitanism. The pro-European justification of anti-gender policies, I argue, echoes these attempts to use European values as strategic resources. Second, I use three short case studies, all of which concern recent developments in Member States after they acceded to the European Union, to illustrate the central argument: the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Slovakia; Lithuanian efforts to protect minors from harmful information about non-traditional relationships; and the pronatalist politics of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Critics label these respective policies as violations of EU principles. Yet, as the case studies suggest, the policies’ initiators refuse to be branded as bad Europeans. Instead, they claim to be defending European values through their efforts to protect the traditional family. Finally, in addition to summarizing the main argument, the conclusion discusses the study’s implications and wider relevance.

“True Europeans”: Discursive Battles over the Idea of Europe

In November 2020, George Soros called upon the EU to stymie the attack on the rule of law in Hungary and Poland. The response of the Union, he cautioned, “will determine whether it survives as an open society true to the values upon which it was founded” (Soros 2020). This warning echoed an observation that the philanthropist made during the financial crisis. “True Europeans,” according to Soros (2011), respected “the principles that guided the union’s creation.” Yet, the question of what a “true European” looks like has been the topic of many heated political discussions. Indeed, for many of his enemies, Soros represents the antithesis of a true European; instead, he is a “rootless cosmopolitan” who has helped steer the EU away from precisely those values that were at the basis of European integration (Foer 2019). Viktor Orbán, arguably the most vociferous critic of the investor-turned-philanthropist, points to the supposed existence of a “Soros Plan” that aims at diluting Europe’s Christian character by flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants (MTI 2017). Orbán therefore claims that both Europe and Hungary find themselves “in the very midst of a civilizational struggle” (Kalmar 2020, 193). This is, at its core, a struggle over what Europe—and, by extension, the EU—stands for.

The contrast between Orbán and Soros shows how the idea of Europe can be articulated in different ways. Although both men claim to subscribe to a pro-European vision, their visions are wholly incompatible. Such interpretative clashes are common. In fact, the recent adoption of anti-gender policies should be situated within a broader context of discursive battles over the idea of Europe. Three such battles are particularly relevant for this study.

First, the definition of “Europeanness” was one of the most contentious issues during the Convention on the Future of Europe. This convention, which was active between 2001 and 2003, is relevant because it formed the battleground for competing visions of the EU. The convention was tasked with drafting the ill-fated Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, which in turn formed the blueprint for the Lisbon Treaty. It was undisputed that the European Union constituted a community of values. The question was, however, whether these values were secular or religious in nature. A powerful alliance of Catholic and Protestant interest groups, including churches, lobbied for an explicit reference to Europe’s Christian heritage (Mudrov 2016a, 2016b; Schlesinger and Foret 2006). Pope John Paul II, for instance, argued that Christianity’s contributions formed “part of a common treasure and it appears logical that this should be inscribed in the project of the Convention” (Smith 2002). A Hungarian MEP noted pithily: “Without Christianity, Europe would only have a brain, but its heart would be missing” (European Parliament 2004). This side of the debate thus argued that European values were Christian values.

The quest for a “God clause” ultimately failed (Wynne 2007). Critics objected that an overt reference to Christianity was irreconcilable with the EU’s commitment to pluralism and tolerance. According to one member of the Convention, granting the Pope’s wish would mark an “important change in a political project which is inherently secular from the beginning” (Mudrov 2016a, 111). Several member states, including Belgium and France, insisted on replicating their vision of laïcité at the European level (Foret and Riva 2010). There was also a real worry that a reference to religion could be abused, for instance by quashing efforts to advance gender equality or blocking the accession of Muslim-majority countries, most notably Turkey, to the Union. These actors thus rejected the characterization of the EU as a Christian project. In the end, the discursive debate over the idea of Europe was settled by means of a compromise position. The preamble of the Lisbon Treaty today asserts that the Union’s core values sprang from the “cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe” (European Union 2012).

Whereas the European Convention concerned competing visions of the European Union, the other two examples distinguish between the EU and Europe. Euroskeptic parties and Vladimir Putin’s Russia oppose the former, while claiming to champion the latter. They are, in other words, challengers to the EU’s vision of Europe. To some extent, the Euroskeptic label is a misnomer. Even for hardliners, whose “hard” Euroskepticism entails the “outright rejection of the entire project of European political and economic integration” (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2004, 10), this skepticism seldom transfers to Europe as a cultural entity. In fact, they claim to “defend Europe from the EU” (Lorimer 2020b). Already in 1994, they formed a new group at the supranational level: Europe of Nations. The group proved short-lived, but its idea of Europe endures. Euroskeptic parties criticize the EU for building a European superstate, cynically referred to as the “United States of Europe,” which allegedly overruns the sovereignty of European nations (Vasilopoulou 2018, 190). Euroskeptic parties vary in their outlook for a better Europe. Some oppose any type of institutionalized cooperation at the European level; others submit an “internationalist defence of Europe as a looser community of sovereign nation-states” (Glencross 2019). The final speech of Nigel Farage, the lead Brexiteer, in the European Parliament clearly captured what unites most Euroskeptics: “We love Europe; we just hate the European Union. It’s a[s] simple as that” (European Parliament 2020).

The juxtaposition of pro-European and anti-EU language is strategically advantageous. This becomes especially apparent during debates on immigration and EU enlargement. Euroskeptic parties claim to be true Europeans because they oppose, for example, Turkey’s accession (Brown 2019) or a supranational quota scheme for housing migrants (Strapáčová and Hloušek 2018; Tabosa 2020). European civilization can only be saved by rejecting the EU institutions and their nefarious proposals. In an insightful study of the Czech and Slovak responses to the migration crisis, Clarissa Tabosa (2020, 19) finds that migrants are “framed not as the Czech other, or the Slovak other, but as the European other […] that comes here to jeopardize the European values.” Rogers Brubaker (2017) even observes a shift among populist parties, many of which are strongly anti-EU, from nationalism to “civilizationism.” Parties like the French Rassemblement National (National Rally) are thus building “a ‘nationalist international’” as a counterweight to European unification (Lorimer 2020a). However debatable the sincerity of this rhetoric may be (Lorimer 2020b), it provides anti-EU parties with a pro-European façade.

Finally, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has adopted a peculiar brand of civilizational politics that distinguishes between a perfidious and a pure Europe. The EU, with its commitment to liberal values, represents the former; Russia represents the latter. Where the EU has defiled Europe’s Christian roots, Russia is ready to steer the continent back in the right direction. This guidance comes in many guises. For instance, Russia and Hungary are cooperating to protect persecuted Christians in the Middle East (Bos 2019). Scholars have also studied the role that gender equality and LGBTI rights play in Russia’s civilizational discourse (Edenborg 2018; Foxall 2019; Horsfjord 2017; Keating and Kaczmarska 2019; Riabov and Riabova 2014). The distinction between Europa and Gayropa supposedly symbolizes the moral disintegration that has taken place under the EU’s leadership. Russia consequently presents itself as the “savior of European civilization” (Moss 2017).

Evidently, different ideas of Europe compete. The strategic use of Europe as an “ideological resource” in the fight against “gender ideology,” which I analyze in the empirical section, has clear precedents (Lorimer 2020b). This article’s case studies, however, differ from extant scholarship in two important ways. First, while gender and sexual orientation feature prominently in accounts of Russian civilizationism, scholars have not yet explored how actors operating within the EU’s institutional parameters have employed pro-European arguments to justify socially conservative policies related to these themes (but see Korolczuk and Graff 2018, 811–13, on Poland). A “God clause” would almost certainly have affected the development of women’s and LGBTI rights. Participants at the Convention on the Future of Europe, however, only sporadically brought a gender lens to discussions over the Union’s Christian heritage. Similarly, in their analyses of Euroskeptic parties, scholars of comparative party politics concern themselves almost exclusively with the topic of Muslim immigration. I add to this work by focusing on anti-gender politics within the EU.

Second, this study goes beyond the contrast between the EU’s liberal cosmopolitanism and alternative ideas of Europe. Russian officials and Euroskeptic parties alike sell their idea of Europe as antipodal to, and irreconcilable with, EU values. This leaves unexplored the room that actors have to reinterpret these values in order to advance their agenda. My case studies demonstrate that political actors have seized on the ambiguity of these values in order to frame anti-gender policies in a pro-European manner. Gender scholars have recently begun to explore the strategic potential of ambiguity (Graff 2016; Towns 2020). It is precisely because of their use of gender ideology as a poorly specified term that a motley crew of actors “with diverging goals and strategies” have been able “to work together against a common enemy” (Paternotte and Kuhar 2017, 13; also see Mayer and Sauer 2017). Its lack of conceptual clarity allows gender ideology to function as the “symbolic glue” that unites strange bedfellows under the same conservative campaign banner (Kováts and Põim 2015). The case studies that follow maintain this focus on ambiguity, but apply it to the EU’s symbolization of Europe. Because “European values” function as a floating signifier, conservative actors have the interpretative power to reimagine the EU in traditionalist terms.

The Use of Pro-European Frames in Anti-Gender Politics: Three Case Studies

As the discussion of Euroskeptic politicians and Russian officials made clear, it is possible to simultaneously sing the praises of European civilization and disparage the European Union. The case studies, however, show that actors keen on implementing anti-gender policies often opt for a remedial approach instead. They critique the morally decadent trajectory that the EU is currently on, but do not propose to turn away from European integration altogether. The objective is rather to reroute the Union: to return the European project to its roots, which can be traced back to Christian civilization.

The remainder of the section explores three cases: Slovakia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage; Lithuania’s prohibition on so-called “gay propaganda”; and Hungarian pronatalism. It is important to note, however, that the dynamics that this paper describes are not unique to Eastern Europe. In France, for instance, majority parties have increasingly presented themselves as “torchbearers of change and of an alternative Europe” (Reungoat 2015, 305; also see 2012). The Italian example of Lega, with its articulation of a “parochial Europe” (Öner 2022), similarly resonates with the case studies. The paper thus does not intend to perpetuate the stereotype of an East–West divide on issues of gender and sexuality (cf. Mizielińska and Kulpa 2011). What sets the selected countries apart thus appears to be less the language used by the proponents of an alternative Europe and more so their outsized ability to shape policy.

For reasons of space, the treatment of each case is necessarily cursory. The case studies are best seen as vignettes that aim to illustrate how political actors are seizing on the EU’s ambiguous values in order to defend traditional family values. This paper therefore does not purport to make either causal or generalizable claims. The objective here is merely to demonstrate that, contrary to the view that anti-gender campaigns are anti-European endeavors, the fact is that conservative politicians may also employ pro-European language to justify anti-gender policies. Once this empirical phenomenon has been demonstrated, future studies should inquire into when and why politicians make this discursive choice.

The case selection reflects this objective. Because generalizability is not the primary concern, I chose three cases that I know well, having conducted fieldwork related to LGBTI rights in Lithuania and Slovakia and having previously published on Viktor Orbán’s discursive use of European values. Both the policies that were adopted in the three countries and the politicians who adopted them differ in important respects. For example, religion only recently became a “nodal point” in Orbán’s discourse (Lamour 2021). The Hungarian prime minister’s references to Christianity thus appear to be strategic rather than principled, especially when compared with those of longstanding Christian Democrats in Lithuania and Slovakia. Moreover, the Lithuanian anti-propaganda law, the Slovak ban on same-sex marriage, and the Hungarian Family Protection Action Plan evidently do not address the same issues. This matters, because the EU’s ability to intervene on the basis of the nondiscrimination principle, while questionable in all three instances, is especially limited in the areas of family law and social policy. These differences notwithstanding, I demonstrate that conservative politicians in Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia all employed pro-European arguments to justify the adoption of policies that defend the traditional family at the expense of LGBTI rights. The cases are thus comparable in the sense that they reveal the same patterns of discursive behavior.

To demonstrate the paper’s main argument, I parse the legitimation strategies of the main sponsors of policy change: What arguments do conservative politicians put forward to justify controversial policies (Abulof and Kornprobst 2017; Saurugger 2013)? In particular, how is the EU framed in these public justifications? Importantly, I set aside questions about the sincerity of this rhetoric. As Uriel Abulof and Markus Kornprobst aptly note (2017, 10), “we need not assume that speakers and authors are sincere for us to consider their discourse valuable, since their narratives both reflect and shape beliefs and practices.” Mainstream politicians may genuinely believe what they say, but they may also feel compelled to maintain a pro-European façade in order to placate the electorate, whose votes they need, or so as to not jeopardize access to EU funds. When compared to uncovering actors’ true motives, my objective is more modest: to describe how conservative politicians justify anti-gender policies with reference to EU values.

Slovakia: The Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

In 2014, the Slovak parliament agreed on a de facto ban on same-sex marriage. The National Council agreed to revise the constitutional definition of marriage in heteronormative terms: as a union between a man and a woman (National Council 2014c). This anti-gay amendment might seem surprising at first glance, since it came at a time when a nominally social democratic party was in full control of the government. This party, Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Direction–Social Democracy (Smer–sociálna demokracia, Smer-SD), had never held outspoken views on LGBTI rights. Resistance to same-sex unions was instead a longstanding preoccupation for the Christian Democratic Movement (Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie, KDH). Because constitutional revisions require a three-fifths majority, the party never came close to realizing this goal. An opportunity arose, however, when the governing party expressed a wish to revise a part of the constitution that specifically concerned the judiciary. Turning their backs on their fellow opposition parties, the Christian Democrats agreed to a quid pro quo: they granted the Social Democrats their judicial reform in exchange for their protection of the natural family. With the constitutional ban, Slovakia defied the continent-wide diffusion of same-sex unions (Mos 2020).

The KDH has a history of combining support for European integration with a forthright criticism of the EU’s alleged moral disintegration. As such, the party exemplifies what  Cécile Leconte (2010, 57) calls “value-based Euroscepticism.” Already in 2002, as Slovakia prepared itself for EU membership, the KDH spearheaded an attempt to prevent the Union from interfering in the realm of morality politics. The resulting document, the Declaration on the Sovereignty of European Union Member States and European Union Candidate Countries in Cultural and Ethical Issues, already revealed the party’s perspective on European values. It emphasizes the “traditional values and ethical principles of European civilization, which have contributed to the spiritual unity of Europe” but which a tidal wave of moral relativism has placed under attack (National Council 2002). To safeguard these values, the EU should respect the sovereignty of candidate and member states alike. This same legitimation strategy was on display during parliamentary debates on the constitutional ban.

In fact, the KDH spun an apocalyptic narrative according to which acceptance of same-sex marriage was the harbinger of civilizational demise. The Christian Democrats cited European, as opposed to national, rates related to births, marriage, abortion, and divorce to sound the alarm. Peter Muránsky warned that “every civilization that turned away from its own values ceased to exist” (National Council 2014e). European civilization would await the same fate if politicians failed to protect the traditional family. To this end, Marián Kvasnička implored his colleagues to resist the organizations that were hard at work “to destroy and totally annihilate deeply-rooted European traditions” (National Council 2014e). In the words of another Member of Parliament (MP), Martin Fronc, nothing less than the civilizational culture and history “of the whole of Europe” was at stake here (National Council 2014d).

While they saw themselves as defending a time-honored European way of life, the Christian Democrats fretted that the EU was heading in the wrong direction. The party in particular charged that the European Parliament’s moral compass was broken. For instance, echoing Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, Alojz Přidal contrasted his party’s tireless support for the “culture of life” with MEPs’ campaign for a “culture of death” (National Council 2014e). The European institutions, at least in the realm of morality, could lay no claim to defining Europeanness. Ján Figeľ, the leader of the KDH who later, between 2016 and 2019, became the EU’s Special Envoy for the Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the European Union, argued instead that the true Europeans could be found within his own party: “we are Europe, not other people, not Brussels” (National Council 2014a).

In short, the Christian Democratic Movement initiated the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage as a response to the moral decadence it believed was engulfing the European Union. The party, as Martijn Mos (2020) shows, engaged in a form of anticipatory politics: it endeavored to protect a traditional understanding of marriage out of a real fear that the EU institutions, having long since abandoned Europe’s civilizational roots, would impose same-sex unions on the member states. The Christian Democrats’ constitutional amendment thus promised to protect what was quintessentially European—namely, the traditional family. The party’s legitimation strategy is perhaps best summarized by Marián Kvasnička’s simple equation: “a strong family—a better Europe” (National Council 2014b).

Lithuania: The Ban on “Gay Propaganda”

Having secured EU membership, Lithuania embarked on a political trajectory that Artūras Tereškinas (2019, 14) calls “the retradicionalization [sic] of gender and sexual norms.” Arguably the clearest expression of this process came in 2009, when the national parliament, the Seimas, effectively banned the promotion of homosexuality. The initiative is often referred to as a Russian-style anti–gay propaganda law. In reality, the policy in question does not concern a new law, but an amendment to an existing one: the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information. The law also does not explicitly mention either homosexuality or propaganda. Although the original draft did refer to homosexual relationships, the final amendment prohibits information “which promotes sexual relations” of any kind and “which expresses contempt for family values and encourages the concept of entry into a marriage and creation of a family other than stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania” (Republic of Lithuania 2009a). Both the constitution and civil code define marriage in heteronormative terms. In effect, therefore, the legal change outlawed information about same-sex relationships.

Spearheading this attempt to reconnect the Baltic nation with its traditional values was a conservative party, the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats (Tėvynės sąjunga–Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai, TS-LKD). The party has close ties to the Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference, which is adamant about protecting traditional family values (Aalia and Duvold 2012, 44). At the same time, the party has a deep commitment to European integration. In fact, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey consistently classifies the Homeland Union as the most pro-European of Lithuania’s mainstream parties (Bakker et al. 2015). This placed party representatives in a predicament: they had to justify their support for the amendment without running afoul of the EU’s core principles.

Conservative politicians responded with a set of arguments that included the importance of subsidiarity as a sacrosanct principle of European integration; the presence of similar legislation to protect the well-being of children in other EU countries; and the point that the policy’s neutral language—that is, the lack of overt references to homosexuality—makes it impossible for the law to be discriminatory. What matters here, however, concerns a different argument altogether: the belief that the protection of minors against detrimental forms of information was an expression of true European values. The following quote, by the conservative MP Mantas Adomėnas, epitomizes this legitimation strategy:

We must, in this law, recognize the family as perhaps the highest expression of European Christian civilization. The family—which is based on the protection of young, unborn or newborn forms of life, and on preparing them for life in society and the creation of another family—is the pinnacle of European civilization, and we should not give up on her. We are not against Europe; we are in favor of the authentic European tradition, the true European tradition that we inherited, together with our ancestors’ decrees to defend our freedom, to defend our values, and to defend our way of life. (Republic of Lithuania 2009d)

According to this reasoning, refusing to protect Lithuania’s minors would usher in “the destruction of the concept of family” (Republic of Lithuania 2009d). This, in turn, contravenes the very essence of European civilization. Adomėnas was not the only conservative delegate to proffer this perspective. For Valentinas Stundys, the debate reflected an “ongoing conflict of values and ideologies in Europe, an attempt to change the European tradition.” This conflict was waged between “exaggerated individualism,” which represented “a one-sided understanding of modern Europe,” and the conservatives’ traditionalist outlook, which was centered around the family (Republic of Lithuania 2009d). At the conservative fringe, Gintaras Songaila, who would soon be expelled from the party, believed that Lithuania’s law could “help guide other European Union countries” back to their traditional values (Republic of Lithuania 2009d).³ The Homeland Union thus used the language of European civilization to defend the anti-gay propaganda law.

Importantly, the party did not abandon its position when the proposed amendment drew criticism from Brussels. Michael Cashman, the co-president of the EP’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights, warned that the “European Union will not let a Member State restrict its citizens’ fundamental rights” (European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights 2010). The EP even adopted a resolution condemning the law. It reminded the Lithuanian government of its obligation to “ensure that its national laws are compatible with human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in international and European law” (European Parliament 2009). The Seimas responded in kind. Rather than withdrawing the controversial amendment in the face of international censure, it adopted a counter-resolution in which it denounced the EP’s undue interference in the sovereign affairs of a member state (Republic of Lithuania 2009b). The Homeland Union wholeheartedly supported this rejoinder.⁴ The EP’s rebuke made Česlovas Stankevičius wonder whether family values were “still recognized as European values” (Republic of Lithuania 2009c). What is more, the party sent two of its MPs—Mantas Adomėnas and, supposedly personifying his party’s tolerance, the openly gay Rokas Žilinskas—to defend the amendment at a hearing of the EP’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights. In Brussels, Adomėnas averred that the EU’s values left member states “free to define what is moral and what isn’t” (UK Gay News 2010).

In sum, the pro-European orientation of the Homeland Union finds itself reflected in how party representatives justified their effort to protect minors from the blight of homosexuality. References to the traditional values of European civilization featured prominently in parliamentary discourse. The “anti-gay propaganda” law was thus not, to the conservatives at least, a Euroskeptic initiative. Rather, it was an attempt to return Lithuanian society to the family values that had long been Europe’s civilizational hallmark.

Hungary: The Pronatalist Turn

The case studies examine conservative lawmakers’ purported efforts to safeguard European civilization. In Lithuania and Slovakia, politicians did so by defending the traditional family from the onslaught of homosexuality, in either marital or propagandistic terms. The Hungarian example reveals how this civilizational mission can also take on a different form. The conservative party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz–Magyar Polgári Szövetség), and its satellite party, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt, KDNP), together embarked upon a campaign to boost the country’s birth rates. Such state-sponsored pronatalism, or projects “to encourage childbearing by some or all members of a civil, ethnic, or national group,” are by no means new (Brown and Ferree 2005, 8; Kligman 1998; Tuttle 2010). Yet, current anxieties over demographic decline mean that pronatalism is back in vogue.

This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in Hungary. Fidesz may have initially adopted a moderately liberal platform, but Viktor Orbán soon transformed the party into a bastion of social conservatism. Already in 2007 he penned an article arguing that religion should play a bigger role in politics (Orbán 2007). Ten years later, when Budapest hosted the eleventh World Congress of Families, a gathering of culturally conservative organizations from across the globe that are united in their defense of traditional family values, Orbán delivered the opening speech. He styled himself “as a European politician” who sought to rescue “a besieged Europe” (Orbán 2017). According to the Hungarian prime minister, “the greatest existential question for European civilization” resulted from the toxic combination of a rapidly declining number of “indigenous inhabitants” and the danger of non-Christian illegal migrants flooding the continent (Orbán 2017). This question urgently required an answer.

In his speech, Orbán provided a first glimpse into his solution for an embattled Europe. This ultimately developed into the Family Protection Action Plan, which the government presented in 2019. Without providing a comprehensive overview of the action plan, this pronatalism aimed at securing “a European population turnaround” and “the restoration of natural reproduction” (Orbán 2017). The seven-point plan offered a range of financial incentives to encourage Hungarian families to have more babies.

Critics charge that this policy is discriminatory in more ways than one. The unofficial tagline for the plan is “procreation over immigration” (BBC 2020). That is to say, the only acceptable way of tackling Hungary’s demographic decline is to encourage homegrown babies, and not to open the borders to migrants. The eligibility criteria implicitly exclude Roma families (Inotai 2019). Cynics, including Sweden’s minister for social security, drew a parallel between Hungary’s promotion of ethnically homogeneous families and the Nazi regime’s pronatalism (Hausner 2019; Sarnyai 2019).

There is also a pronounced anti-gender dimension to the action plan. As Eszter Zimanyi (2020, 305) argues, the policy “mobilizes demographic concerns in order to reassert the primacy of heteronuclear families and traditional gender roles.” Women’s primary responsibility is to bear children.⁴ Moreover, eligibility under the policy is limited to “every woman between the ages of 18 and 40 years living in their first marriage” (Hungarian Government 2019). Since Hungary does not recognize same-sex marriages, the policy is aimed exclusively at heterosexual procreation.

What role did European values play in Fidesz’s legitimation strategy? Although the party has not refrained from antagonizing the EU,⁵ this should only be interpreted as opposition to the direction of European integration (Hargitai 2020). Fidesz remains supportive of the European project in general. Its ire is mostly reserved for the “Brussels bureaucrats” and their liberal henchmen within civil society and the European Parliament (Hungary Today 2019). These actors stand accused of leading Europe astray. Orbán, on the other hand, wished “to contribute to Europe’s success by setting a good, brave example of governmental action” (Orbán 2017). Hungary proposed to reconnect the EU with its Christian heritage. As such, Orbán effectively crowned his government as the savior of European civilization.

Indeed, Fidesz used its campaign for the 2019 European Parliament elections to argue that the EU found itself at a crossroads. The elections would determine, in Orbán’s words, whether “Europe continues to belong to the Europeans or to masses from another civilization; whether we can save our Christian, European culture or give up the ground for multiculturalism” (Hungary Today 2019). As Justice Minister László Trócsányi argued, Brussels had lost touch with the views of ordinary people, including those related to the traditional family (Hungary Today 2019). The European elections were thus an invaluable opportunity to take back control over the EU’s trajectory. Fidesz was ready to correct the course.

The Hungarian government’s pronatalism is nicely summed up by the following excerpt from Orbán’s opening speech at the World Congress of Families:

When the captain of a vast ocean liner wants to turn it around, he may turn the wheel in vain: the ship will not turn immediately, but will only slowly adopt a new course. As Prime Minister, I believe that this is just how it is with a turnaround in population and family policy. (Orbán 2017)

Here, Orbán describes how the Family Protection Action Plan aims to reverse Hungary’s demographic decline. But the vision also speaks to his government’s approach to the EU: to gradually steer it in the direction of traditional family values, which are at the heart of European civilization.

Conclusion

Two visions of Europe compete in the discourse of LGBTI rights advocates and their fiercest adversaries. The former are hard at work to ensure that “the understanding of LGBT rights as a European value is further cemented” (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014, 3). For them, a close association exists between European integration and sexual diversity. Their critics often concur. But for the likes of Vladimir Putin and Euroskeptic politicians, this nexus is yet another reason to resist the European Union. They propose an alternative Europe that remains true to Christian family values. The two sides cannot agree on much, but they do both associate the EU with a liberal approach to gender.

Yet, this article has argued that a third idea of Europe exists, made possible by the ambiguity surrounding EU values. The lack of a fixed meaning turns these values into floating signifiers. As developments in Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia suggest, conservative politicians put forth an alternative reading of European values that severs the association between the EU and LGBTI rights. This enables them to justify anti-gender policies without abandoning the European project altogether. Instead, by rooting EU values in Christianity and the traditional family, they are able to argue that restrictions of LGBTI rights are in line with the Union’s moral foundations. By banning same-sex marriage, prohibiting gay propaganda, and promoting higher birth rates among traditional families, the politicians in this article thus hope to correct the course not just of their own country, but of the European Union as a whole. In short, while critics accuse them of violating EU values, the advocates of anti–gender politics often claim to be conducting a civilizational campaign to reform the EU.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In practice, the reference to “LGBT-free zones” refers to two distinct, if closely related, initiatives: the adoption of a resolution against “LGBT ideology” or the approval of a Local Government Charter of the Rights of the Family. Whereas the former campaign is spearheaded by the governing party of Law and Justice, the latter initiative is led by a nongovernmental organization, the Ordo Iuris Institute.

2. I owe this point to an anonymous reviewer.

3. It should be noted that Songaila stood out within his party for employing an overtly homophobic discourse. He drew, for example, a comparison between the Soviet tanks that sought to thwart Lithuanian independence and the “amoral lobby network” advocating for LGBTI rights (Republic of Lithuania 2009d).

4. In fact, the resolution was co-sponsored by 55 MPs, including most conservative representatives.

5. See Kovács (2019) on the Family Protection Action Plan.