Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen warns guilty verdict intended to silence dissent: 'They wanted to give a signal'
Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen warned that her recent guilty verdict from the Supreme Court of Finland over her 22-year-old pamphlet condemning homosexuality is intended to frighten others into silence on issues of sexual morality.
"I think that they wanted to find something to find me guilty, because they wanted to give a signal to our society [of] what could happen if you speak freely, if you express your convictions about gender and marriage," Räsänen told The Christian Post during a recent interview in the wake of the high court's 3-2 ruling against her on March 26.
Räsänen, a former leader of Finland's Christian Democratic Party who also served as Finland's interior minister, was found guilty under a hate speech law for co-publishing a 2004 pamphlet titled "Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity," which described homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder.
Despite being acquitted twice by lower courts, Räsänen was convicted under Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code, which deals with "agitation against a minority group." While acknowledging that the text contained no incitement to violence or threats, the court ordered Räsänen to pay a fine of €1,800 (about $2,080) and ordered all physical and digital copies of the pamphlet destroyed, though it remains online.
Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, who published the pamphlet with Räsänen, was also found guilty for his role in disseminating the literature.
The 2004 pamphlet was initially a tangential investigation that emerged in response to criminal complaints against Räsänen for her 2019 tweet that quoted Romans 1:24–27 to rebuke the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for promoting LGBT pride events.
The grandmother of 12 questioned at the time how an ostensibly Christian church could agree with "shame and sin" being presented as "a matter of pride."
The Finnish Supreme Court acquitted Räsänen on the tweet, finding she had justified her view by citing a biblical text. She suggested to CP that the prosecution seized on the decades-old pamphlet because it would be easier to convict her over a text describing homosexuality as disordered than it would be for simply quoting the Bible.
Räsänen said her booklet was about how homosexuality "challenges the Christian view of man" and argues that such behavior is self-evidently "not normal" compared to the biblical standard of marriage between male and female.
"In that respect, homosexuality is some kind of disorder of this original purpose of God, and that was the reason why the Supreme Court found me guilty," she continued.
"I should have said that it is normal to be homosexual, but because the pamphlet, it is about biblical teaching, how God has created and purposed and intended the sexuality to be. That's why I think that it is some kind of disorder, if we compare to what God originally [intended]."
Räsänen said she likely intends to appeal the Supreme Court's ruling to the European Court of Human Rights, and claimed some of the allegations leveled at her by the prosecution were untrue.
"For example, the prosecutor claimed that I had said that homosexual people are inferior to other people. I have not said that. It is a lie. It is not found in my pamphlet," she said. "I say in the pamphlet that all people are equal. God has created us all as in His image, and we are equal in front of God and also in front of our Constitution and in our law."
Räsänen's situation has raised concerns for free speech and religious liberty throughout the Western world, including from the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, which condemned the Finnish Supreme Court for its ruling last month and characterized Räsänen's prosecution as "the real crime." They noted "the process is the punishment" in her case, which they noted is obviously intended to have a chilling effect on others.
"If Finland is able to do this to a sitting member of its legislature and a clergyman who chairs an international organization with millions of members, no less notable person can feel comfortable expressing similar views in public," the editorial board wrote, warning that the First Amendment will not necessarily guarantee against similar injustice in the United States if Americans fail to maintain a culture of free speech.
Räsänen has issued similar warnings to Americans. In February, she attended a prayer gathering of national repentance at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., shortly before testifying to Congress about the growing hostility toward free speech in Europe.
