by Julian Mann, TCW
ARGUABLY the most significant reflection so far on the egregious conviction of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen for ‘hate speech’ has come from an unlikely source – an Anglican theologian.
On Christian Today Dr Martin Davie argues that the international media coverage of the case has largely failed to get to grips with the underlying cultural reasons for Räsänen’s conviction.
On March 26, Finland’s Supreme Court found the former Interior Minister (equivalent of the Home Secretary) guilty on a 3-2 verdict of the crime of incitement against a minority group because of what she had written in a 2004 pamphlet, Male and Female He Created Them – Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity.
Davie provides a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court judgment against Räsänen, who has just announced her intention to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The offence for which she was convicted is spelled out in paragraphs 45-47, 51 and 57-58 of the judgment where she is referred to as ‘A’.
In paragraphs 45-47 the judgment declares: ‘A has stated, among other things, that the underlying cause of sexually abnormal emotional life is disorders related to psychosexual development and that the scientific evidence inexorably demonstrates that homosexuality is a disorder of psychosexual development. She has denied the claim that homosexuality is a natural and healthy variation of sexuality. She has also stated that under certain conditions it is possible that sexual identity will be integrated towards a normal heterosexual emotional life and found that gay culture is part of the sexual abnormality as a whole.’
The judgment goes on to quote the 2020 ‘expert opinion’ of the National Institute for Health and Welfare which the court claims ‘shows that, according to modern medicine (psychiatry), homosexuality is considered to be part of the normal spectrum of sexuality’.