In holding-the-powerful-accountable news ...

HELSINKI, March 26 (Reuters) - Finland's Supreme Court on Tuesday found a member of parliament guilty and fined her for calling homosexuality a "developmental disorder", in a long-running ​precedent case that has turned into a political tussle over the ‌limits of freedom of speech.

The court found Paivi Rasanen, a medical doctor and MP for the small Christian Democratic party since 1995, guilty of incitement against a group by claiming in ​a social media post in 2019 and on her website in 2020 ​that it was scientifically proven that homosexuality was a developmental disorder.

The correct spelling is "Päivi Räsänen". Rëütërs is probably suffering from a shortage of imported umlauts, what with the strait of Hormuz being all full of dots and all.

The ⁠court ordered Rasanen to pay a fine, 1,800 euros ($2,080).

Rasanen had been supported by ​the Alliance Defending Freedom - a U.S.-based conservative legal group that campaigns for free speech ​and has tried to use her case as an example of how "Europe is censoring the world" in its view.

I would be negligent in my chatting-on-Fediverse duties if I negliged to point out at this point that ADF is a designated hate group.

The Supreme Court did some important fact-checking, as well:

"The Supreme Court considers that ... Rasanen must have understood that, for example, claiming ​that homosexuality is a disorder of psychosexual development is, in light of the ​prevailing medical understanding, an incorrect assertion," the court wrote in its verdict, on which it voted ‌3-2 ⁠in favour. Lower courts had acquitted Rasanen of all charges.

In a better world, the medical association would also reprimand her, for casting disreputable light upon the profession by abusing her degree and licence for espousing demonstrably inaccurate medical claims like that. But, oh well, maybe in another day, or year, or term.

A curious detail in this case is, Räsänen was an MP at the time she committed the crime, and as such, would have had parliamentary immunity. Eduskunta must have stripped her of the immunity for the prosecution to have been possible in the first place.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/finlands-supreme-court-fines-mp-calling-homosexuality-developmental-disorder-2026-03-26/

Alliance Defending Freedom

Founded by some 30 leaders of the Christian Right, the Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society. ADF also works to develop “religious liberty” legislation and case law that will allow the denial of goods and services to LGBTQ people on the basis of religion. Since the election of President Trump, ADF has become one of the most influential groups informing the administration’s attack on LGBTQ rights.

Southern Poverty Law Center
@riley My understanding is (was?) that, among Europe, Nordic countries + FI have higher support for freedom---e.g., every man right---and are more open-minded. Was I wrong? Is intolerance common in Finland?

@pedromj It's complicated. The underlying related concepts are understood somewhat differently in Scandinavia than in North America, even.

For example, there's a strong cultural collectivist streak, and for a long while, there has been a general consensus that a social safety net would be a good idea. This tends to spread economic risks around and, therefore, improve everybody's general freedom. On the other hand, because this is a tradition, the right-wingers don't rail against it, but seek to twist it to their ends, often in anti-freedom ways. A century ago, Finland was one of the most eager countries to enforce the original Prohibition, and even now, both Finland and Sweden are running the War On Drugs in such an aggressive manner that these two countries are some of the few EU members where delivering grey market estrogen by post is not really an option.

Furthermore, there's the relatively new development of international-style hard right people, a bunch who, ironically, call themselves "true Finns" or "ancient Finns", and in this particular case, they're the party most eagerly egging Räsänen on. (Curiously, she is not actually their member; she's a Christian Democrat; a relatively small party that used to be less radical, but has been turning more hardline partly due to American influence.)

Finally, Finland is interesting in that it's a democracy with a national church. It has never been a monarchy since independence, like virtually all other church-entangled countries have been — there's kind of an inherent connection between monarchs, churches, and the Divine Right of Kings —, but nevertheless, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Finnish Orthodox Church are officially established churches, with special legal duties and privileges, and with some funding coming from the national budget. In practice, the Orthodox Church has much fewer members and much less influence than the Evangelical Church, though; its status is effectively due to grandfathering. Before independence, the Russian Orthodox Church was the established church, and unabashedly pushed for the Divine Right of the Czar. (The current Finnish Orthodox Church is aligned with the patriarchy of Constantinopolis rather than Moscow, though.) But I digress.

So, one of the interesting things about having an integrated national church is, the Parliament can just pass laws that would apply to the church. This is not a common way for church policy to change, though; the sort of people who would run national churches tend to have a good nose for knowing which way the wind is blowing. (That's how they know when to shut up about the divine right of kings, after all.) And, as Nordic countries have adopted gender equality and marriage equality as relatively consensual good ideas, the major Nordic established churches have been fairly diligent in obeying these principles out of their good will, lest there be a big legal showdown (which they'd probably lose). For Nordic churches, ordaining women or performing same-gender marriages is no big deal — and to some people, this is Against the Natural Order of Things.

So now, hopefully, you have some better idea as to where Räsänen comes into play. She's trying to be more Catholic than the Pope in a country that kicked the Pope out centuries ago.

@pedromj As for your last question — yes and no. Large-scale intolerance tends to be presented as enforcing social conformity, though, and it doesn't always look like intolerance to a Western-er observer. The new thing about the "True Finns", though is, they're eager to import American-style intolerance rather than use the old-timey, er, dog whistles

You might want to look up 'Jantelagen' / 'Janteloven' / 'Jante's law'. The written rules are, well, a bit #HHOS, in that the real-life version is more vibes-based attitudes than written rules that one could lawyer, but as attitudes, they're a real thing, and that has both positive and negative effects on abstract 'freedoms'.

@pedromj Nordic countries (I believe the highest being Sweden, but I could be wrong on that) used to also be some of the most eager enacters of compulsory sterilisation for "eugenics" purposes, for a negative example, and if you have heard about the Ryan Report, or the Magdalene Lundries or the Mother-And-Baby-Homes Scandal of Ireland, well, Sweden is currently busy coping with a century of adoption abuse coming to light. Importantly, while the (known) Irish instances of this type of abuse are all associated with the Catholic church, the Swedish one is not inherently religious. It's thus an interesting example of how the sort of screw-uppery that would otherwise require a church can be achieved merely by good intentions, social conformity, and willingness to close an eye to abuse.

On the other hand, related cultural atitudes have brought Nordic countries to a point where classic kinds of corruption are notoriously low[1], and bureaucrats tend to fulfill their jobs quickly and efficiently. They're simply just as quick and effective at executing bad laws as good ones.

[1] The one exception is the War On Drugs. By and large, only a drug cop would accept a bribe — or a kickback — in Helsinki.

Sweden urged to ban international adoption after damning inquiry findings

Inquiry head accuses Swedish state of human rights violations, citing child-trafficking cases across four decades

The Guardian

@pedromj Oh, and FI is officially one of the Nordic Countries, in that it's a full member of the Nordic Council. It's just an oddball because Finland and Iceland are the only members without monarchs, and a lot of people mistakenly tend to associate Nordics with just the former Kalmarunion's core.

Maybe the popular understanding of the Nordics will improve when Scotland declares itself an independent republic. Its first move would undoubtedly be rejoining the EU, but it'd probably soon also join the Nordic Council.

@pedromj For a specific example of ethnic strife, both Sweden's and Norway's settled people have been known to harrass and bully the nomadic Sami folks who live and/or travel in the northern parts of these countries. It's by now a bit old, but even The Wonderous Adventures of Nils Holgersson, a geography textbook masquerading as a children's fairy tale, has some rather painful scenes about the Swedish-Sami contacts.