Finland’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a sitting member of parliament committed “hate speech” by co-authoring a church pamphlet in 2004 that cited the Bible’s teaching on marriage.
The vote was 3-2 against Paivi Rasanen, a member of Finland’s Christian Democrats and the country’s former Minister of the Interior. The pamphlet she co-wrote with Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola ran 25 pages and laid out the Lutheran position on marriage and sexual ethics. The court found that she and Pohjola “made available to the public and kept available to the public opinions that insult homosexuals as a group.”
Rasanen was ordered to pay a fine of around $2,079. Pohjola got $1,270. The foundation that published the pamphlet was hit with $5,775. The court also ordered 11 specific statements removed from the pamphlet and directed that those passages be “destroyed.”
Both courts below had thrown out the case. Lower courts acquitted her in 2022 and again in 2023. Prosecutors appealed each time, but the Supreme Court reversed those acquittals.
The high court did throw her one partial acquittal: she was not convicted for sharing a passage from the book of Romans.
“I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed 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,” Rasanen said, adding, “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.”
Her attorney Paul Coleman, with Alliance Defending Freedom International, said the ruling shows what happens when hate speech laws are written without clear definitions. “Vaguely worded and highly subjective hate speech laws can be interpreted and misinterpreted by anyone who looks at them,” he said.
The case has been on the radar of U.S. lawmakers for years, held up as a warning about where government-enforced speech codes in Europe are headed.
