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A top politician in Finland and one of her colleagues in the Parliament are under investigation by Helsinki cops for “homophobic” remarks.
Former Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen, a Christian Democrat member of the legislature, and Hussein al-Taee, Social Democrat, are accused of politically incorrect speech that also constitutes a crime.
In Finland, one may not criticize homosexuals or immigrants. The country’s Ministry of Justice provides a long list of groups protected from hate speech and encourages Finns to snitch when they cross the trail of hate speakers.
Facebook Posts
The trouble began for Räsänen with a Facebook post on June 17. Much as Facebook can be a divorce lawyer’s best friend, it’s also become a weapon of the radical Left to deplatform enemies, and, in this case, accuse them of “crimes.”
Räsänen’s offense? Lamenting the participation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) in Helsinki’s Pride events that month, she wrote about homosexual behavior using the baleful words “sin” and “shame” and cited Scripture to make her point. Räsänen pointed to Romans 1:24-27, St. Paul’s denunciation of homosexual sodomy as an “unclean” and “shameful affection.”
Wrote Räsänen, “The Church of which I am a member has announced to be the official partner of the set Helsinki Pride 2019 How does the church’s doctrine, the Bible, fit together with the cause where shame and sin are raised as a topic of pride? #Pride #Bible #Ev #room: 24-27.”
And so now, cops are “investigating” to determine if Räsänen should be prosecuted.
“The pre-trial investigations have [not] yet been completed,” the officer in charge of the probe told the Helsinki Times. “Police will provide more details once the investigations have been completed or presented to a prosecutor for consideration of charges.”
Since then, Räsänen has tweeted and posted articles to Facebook about her case. “I hope the #police investigation won’t lead to self-censorship among #Christian,” she tweeted today. “Let’s use our #freedom of #religion and speech. #church #pride2019.”
She posted likewise on Facebook, urging fellow Christians to “use our freedom of religion and speech — otherwise the space for it will become narrower!”
On August 13, she wrote, “I am not concerned on my part, as I trust this will not move on to the prosecutor. However, I am concerned if quoting the Bible is considered even ‘slightly’ illegal. I hope this won’t lead to self-censorship among Christians. Rom. 1:24–27.”
Yet “both gay and straight — we are all sinners — we are loved to God, created to be precious and made in the cross of Jesus,” she wrote on Facebook the same day.
Räsänen is married to a minister of the ELCF, Evangelical Focus reported, “and is well known (or notorious, depending on the angle) in the country for her defence of traditional Christian views on ethical issues such as abortion, euthanasia and marriage that are often more conservative than those of the Lutheran Church’s official leadership.”
Though 69 percent of Finns are members of the Church, its membership has declined recently. “In 2010, some 80,000 Finns quit the church body, most blaming MP Räsänen’s participation and expression of traditional views in a TV debate on gender neutral marriage,” the website reported.
As for its teachings, the Church “‘confesses that Christian faith which is based on the Holy Word of God, the prophetic and apostolic books of the Old and the New Testament’ and the Lutheran confessional writings of the 16th century.”
More conservative members such as Räsänen are a distinct minority.
Other Crimes
As for Al-Taee, the Times reported, he “is being investigated for a series of writings disparaging religious and sexual minorities on Facebook between 2011 and 2012.”
That might seem like ancient history, but when it comes to rooting out thought and speech crimes, Helsinki cops never rest. They told the newspaper that “the investigation was opened after it was determined that the right to prosecute has not expired because the writings have circulated in public in the past five years.”
Al-Taee admits he wrote the posts and tried to hide them, the newspaper reported.
A third crimethinker is Juha Mäenpää of the True Finns party, who “could be charged with ethnic agitation for likening asylum seekers to introduced species in a statement made in the session hall of the Parliament House.”
Image: Sitikka via iStock / Getty Images Plus
