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The Washington Post editorial board has condemned Finland’s Supreme Court for convicting a sitting Finnish parliamentarian over a 20-year-old religious pamphlet, warning that the ruling threatens free expression well beyond Scandinavia.
The editorial, published as The Post expands its range of viewpoints to include conservative voices, called the prosecution of Päivi Räsänen “the real crime” and argued that maintaining a culture of free speech is as important as any constitutional text.
“Too often, Americans take for granted their First Amendment birthright. Courts should never decide which viewpoints are correct and which are not,” the editorial states. “That is especially true when it’s a minority viewpoint, as Räsänen’s is in Finland. The court acknowledged that her writing did not incite violence or hatred while still finding her guilty.”
Räsänen, a Finnish MP and former leader of Finland’s Christian Democratic Party, was found guilty in a 3-2 ruling for co-publishing a 2004 pamphlet that described homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder. She was fined 1,800 euros (about $2,080) and the court ordered all physical and digital copies of the pamphlet destroyed.
Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code deals with agitation against a minority group.
The court acknowledged that the text contained no incitement to violence or threats, but ruled that describing homosexuality as disordered could insult gay people as a group.
The case originated not with the pamphlet but with a 2019 tweet in which Räsänen quoted Romans 1:24–27 to rebuke the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for participating in LGBT pride month events. Criminal complaints followed, and investigators subsequently surfaced the 2004 document.
The Supreme Court acquitted Räsänen on the tweet, finding she had justified her view by citing a biblical text.
The prosecutor had argued to the court that while citing scripture is permitted, it was “Räsänen’s interpretation and opinion about the Bible verses that are criminal.”
Räsänen and her co-defendant, Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, who published the pamphlet, were unanimously acquitted twice at lower court levels. Pohjola chairs the International Lutheran Council, a global body that includes the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the second-largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.
The Finnish government appealed both rulings, extending the legal ordeal across multiple years before securing the single conviction now under review.
The Washington Post editorial noted that if Finland could prosecute a sitting legislator and the chair of an international religious organization with millions of members, ordinary citizens holding similar views could not feel safe expressing them publicly.
New opinion editor Adam O’Neal, installed by owner Jeff Bezos, has stated his intention to diversify viewpoints. To that end, he recently announced the hiring of three conservative columnists, Kate Andrews of The Spectator, Dominic Pino of National Review, and Carine Hajjar, previously of the Boston Globe editorial board, as reported by The New York Post.
Räsänen said she was “shocked and profoundly disappointed” by the high court’s decision and accused the court of failing to recognize her basic human right to freedom of expression. She said she stands by the teachings of her Christian faith and intends to continue defending the right to share convictions in public.
She is now taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Paul Coleman, executive director of the legal advocacy group ADF International that supported Räsänen, called the ruling “an outrageous example of state censorship,” pointing out that the law under which she was convicted did not exist when the pamphlet was written.
Coleman warned the decision would create a “severe chilling effect” on free speech across Finland and beyond.
Räsänen recently traveled to Washington, D.C., attending a prayer gathering at the Museum of the Bible before testifying before Congress on growing hostility toward free speech in Europe.
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The Christian Post