Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen found guilty of hate speech over 22-year-old pamphlet against homosexuality

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, March 26, 2026

Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen was found guilty of hate speech and fined by the Supreme Court of Finland on Thursday over a pamphlet describing homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder more than 20 years ago.

Räsänen, who led Finland's Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015 and served as the country's interior minister from 2011 to 2015, was found guilty in a slim 3-2 decision of "making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group," according to a press release from the U.S.-based legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.

Police first began investigating the grandmother of 12 in response to criminal complaints shortly after Räsänen's 2019 tweet in which she quoted Romans 1:24–27 to rebuke the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for promoting LGBT "pride month." She questioned how the church could agree with "shame and sin" being presented as "a matter of pride."

Investigators later dredged up a pamphlet she published in 2004 with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, titled "Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity."

At one point, the pamphlet argues that homosexuality is disordered, which the court found was an opinion that could "insult homosexuals as a group on the basis of their sexual orientation."

The court noted that "it must be taken into account that the text forming the basis for the conviction did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred. The conduct is therefore not particularly serious in terms of the nature of the offense."

Convicted under Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code, which deals with "agitation against a minority group," Räsänen was ordered to pay a fine of 1,800 euros ($2,080), and the court prohibited physical and digital copies of the pamphlet from being distributed following the ruling.

In a previous interview with The Christian Post, Räsänen recalled being disturbed by her church's participation in the 2019 Helsinki LGBT Pride march, noting that the police investigation dragged out as she and Pohjola were repeatedly dragged to court.

She and Pohjola faced their third trial last October, despite being unanimously acquitted twice by the Helsinki Court of Appeal and the three-judge District Court of Helsinki.

The Supreme Court acquitted Räsänen over the initial 2019 tweet that sparked the prosecution against her in the first place, arguing that she "justified her opinion by citing a biblical text" among other things.

Räsänen said she was "shocked and profoundly disappointed" by the high court's ruling, and accused them of failing "to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression."

"I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith, and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square," she said.

“I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This is not about my free speech alone, but that of every person in Finland. A positive ruling would help to prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal for simply sharing their beliefs."  

Paul Coleman, who serves as executive director of ADF International, condemned the ruling as "an outrageous example of state censorship," based on a law that did not exist when Räsänen's pamphlet was written.

"This decision will create a severe chilling effect for everyone’s right to speak freely," he warned.

In a statement in 2024, Coleman likened Räsänen's case to something from the Middle Ages and warned of "creeping censorship" afflicting the historically free nations of Europe.

"In a democratic Western nation in 2024, nobody should be on trial for their faith — yet throughout the prosecution of Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola, we have seen something akin to a 'heresy' trial, where Christians are dragged through court for holding beliefs that differ from the approved orthodoxy of the day," Coleman said.

Last month, Räsänen attended a prayer gathering of national repentance at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., before testifying to the U.S. Congress about the growing hostility toward free speech in Europe.