RainbowHouse, an umbrella organisation for several LGBTQ groups, is mainly concerned about the "dramatic outing" of Hungarian MEP Jozsef Szajer, who was caught at a sex party in Brussels.
Szajer is a prominent member of Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s Fidesz party, which has profiled itself as a party against equal rights for the LGBTQ community in the country in recent years.
On Tuesday, it became clear that Szajer was one of the roughly 25 attendees, most of which were men, at a sex party in Brussels that was shut down by the police last Friday, as it was in violation of Belgium's ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus.
"Above all, he is going to have to answer to himself," Rachael Moore of RainbowHouse Brussels told Bruzz. "He lives a double life and is now being outed in a very dramatic way. I hope he will find support somewhere, because this can be difficult."
"However, he is surrounded by people who very much believe in the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, which worries me about its impact," she said, adding that it is still too early to say whether this will undermine Fidesz's anti-LGBTQ policy.
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She added that it is not surprising that someone is strongly opposed to the LGBTQ community and, at the same time, belongs to the community as well.
"In many conservative parties, there are LGBTQ people, that is true everywhere," Moore said. "That attitude is very contradictory, but often reflects the inner struggle that these people are having."
Additionally, she denounced the fact that the LGBTQ community is expected to the event, just because the party was mainly attended by men.
"That would not be asked about a sex party among heterosexual people. Only those people present, who did not follow the coronavirus measures, should ask themselves questions," Moore said.
Additionally, the Flemish centre of expertise for sexual health Sensoa called such parties reprehensible "in these corona times."
"This has brought an underexposed aspect of the Brussels gay scene to the surface," Mark Sergeant of Sensoa said. "Sensoa has known for some years that private sex parties are organised, via mobile apps, with group sex among gay men, and not only in Brussels."
On its website, the organisation calls on everyone not to visit or organise such parties as long as the coronavirus restrictions are in force.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
