by Chris Black
Okay, so, I guess you’re still allowed to read the Bible in Finland.
That’s good news, right?
If you’re having a discussion about sending people to prison for being Christians, you’ve already lost.
A court of appeal dismissed all charges of “hate speech” and “ethnic agitation” against Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen on Tuesday in what has been hailed as a victory for free speech.
The Finnish member of Parliament had been charged in 2021 after publicly sharing in 2019 her biblical, religious views on marriage as between one man and one woman.
Though Räsänen, 63, was unanimously acquitted by a Finnish District Court in 2022, prosecutors appealed her acquittal to the Helsinki Court of Appeal. The former minister of the interior faced the possibility of tens of thousands of euros in fines and two years in prison.
Two years in prison for quoting the Bible. In Finland, a country that isn’t really even very politically correct (just innocent and generally confused and bedazzled by modernity).
This is the extreme nature of our plight.