Now that a long-running legal battle over a Finnish politician’s right to free speech has come to an end, the lesson for Americans is to keep fighting for your First Amendment rights.
What began for Päivi Räsänen as a rebuke to the state church, way back in 2019, concluded with two separate rulings this week by the Supreme Court of Finland.
In the first verdict, the judges unanimously ruled in her favor that her social media post, which showed a Bible verse, did not meet Finland’s definition of hate speech.
The second court ruling, however, found her guilty of violating Finland’s “hate speech” law and fined her 1,800 Euros. Her supposed crime, upheld by the high court, was citing a religious pamphlet about marriage entitled “Male and Female He Created Them.” That pamphlet, which condemns homosexuality and calls it a mental disorder, was condemned by the court for unlawfully agitating a population group, referring to homosexuals.
The publisher of the pamphlet, a church bishop named Juhana Pohjola, was also found guilty by the Supreme Court. His publishing house was fined 5,000 euros, and he was ordered to remove the “unlawful” comments in the pamphlet that is still posted online.
Räsänen and Pohjola have been represented by ADF International, an arm of the U.S.-based Alliance Defending Freedom legal organization.
Reacting to the ruling this week, Sean Nelson, senior counsel at ADF International, reminded the “Washington Watch” audience that the ADF client began her fight with her own church after learning it was hosting a Helsinki “pride” event for homosexuals.
Räsänen, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the state church, has been described as a devout Christian who let church leadership know she disagreed with their affirmation of homosexuality.
“So she posted on Twitter,” Nelson recalled, “saying that she disagreed with that, that she didn’t think the Bible taught that pride was a good thing, but that it was a sinful thing.”
The Bible passage Räsänen shared, from the Book of Romans, is the Apostle Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality as sinful. “Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error,” that passage reads in part.
Räsänen’s defense of an orthodox biblical belief represented a rarity in Finland. Only about 5% of Finns attend church services weekly, and Finland’s support for LGBTQ rights ranks among the top ten nations in Europe.
Despite the country’s secular, post-Christian culture, Räsänen was acquitted on criminal charges in not one but two back-to-back court cases, the ADF attorney pointed out.
“They said the Bible is not illegal in Finland, and we’re not going to make it illegal to talk about your faith,” Nelson, referring to the lower courts, said.
Because a criminal acquittal can be appealed under Finnish law, Nelson said the prosecutors, who had expressed terrible hatred for the Bible at the trial, did not give up. The prosecutors asked the Supreme Court to hear their appeal, which happened last fall.
In a separate “Washington Watch” interview about Räsänen’s case, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the Bible verse she posted is hardly controversial for any Christian to believe, but there is “massive censorship” in Europe, he said.
Back in the United States, however, Roy said he followed her legal fight closely because he watched Big Tech companies cooperate with the Biden administration during the Covid pandemic to police comments on social media.
“We’ve got to get busy deciding how we want to live,” Roy warned. “ Are we going to defend our Judeo-Christian culture, while maintaining Western values and maintaining the rights to free speech, and freedom of religion, and free expression, or are we not?”
