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The case of Päivi Räsänen: With the EU, marriage between a man and a woman could become “hate speech”


The newly rolled out trial against Päivi Räsänen could serve as an opportunity for Brussels to make hate speech an EU-wide criminal offense in the future. Anyone who postulates that marriage between a man and a woman is the only valid one, or who speaks of "gender insensitivity" could end up like the Finnish interior minister.

The Päivi Räsänen case is a proxy war over freedom of expression. She could become a precedent when it comes to the red lines of what can be said - and put religious freedom on the index like traditional European values. The police have been investigating the convinced Lutheran since 2019 because she criticized the cooperation of her church with the "Pride" movement.

A tweet in which she quoted a passage from Romans became the bone of contention. Further investigations turned up a 20-year-old pamphlet to support Räsänen's "hate speech": In it, together with Bishop Juhana Pohjola, she had represented the traditional Christian understanding of marriage and family. The title? "Male and female He created them". Pohjola also ended up in the dock.

Both sides want a precedent
The staging was reminiscent of a show trial. The public prosecutor found the Christian motto "Love the sinner, hate the sin" too much, yes, the word sin alone was already "hurting". For the observer it was clear from the start that an example was to be set here of how far the Moloch of the new woken ideology could go. To the relief of most involved, the trial ended in acquittal. The Finnish public prosecutor's office had to bear the costs. It was a victory for freedom of expression - but a premature one.

The public prosecutor's office appealed the verdict last Friday. Räsänen, a member of the Finnish Parliament, said she was "dismayed". At the same time, she sees it as an opportunity. The prosecutor's decision could lead to "the case going all the way to the Supreme Court, which offers the opportunity to set a positive precedent for freedom of speech and religion for all Finns".

Above: "The church has announced that it is the official partner of Seta's Pride2019. How does the doctrine of the Church, the Bible, fit in with shame and sin being raised as a matter of pride?"

At this point one can rightly ask: Where does the doggedness with which a former Finnish minister (2011-2015) and party leader (2004-2015) is humiliated and dragged in front of the Kadi come from, because she maintains convictions that still exist maybe not shared by everyone a few years ago, but were still considered completely acceptable? It is reasonable to think that there is also a desire on the other side to set a precedent that will break all dams in terms of hate speech.

A paper on the introduction of an EU-wide criminal offense has been in the drawer since December 2021
Dissenting opinions as a crime? There is no doubt that panic is currently reigning in the left-liberal milieu. Whether it's Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, or the possible revision of "Roe v. Wade" by the US Supreme Court: Things are not looking good for the hegemonic course of the "progressives". But a glimmer of hope beckons the awakened and enlightened on the horizon. It is a document from the EU Commission that has been sitting in a drawer since December 2021. The content? The extension of the EU criminal offenses to "Hate Speech" and "Hate Crime".

In its draft, the Commission warns that hate speech and hate crimes have increased both online and offline. They have become a "worrying phenomenon". In view of this, an EU-wide approach is necessary. With the exception of a single study cited, which data the Commission relies on and why the national states cannot implement such a regulation themselves remains non-transparent. The basis is also interesting. Not human rights, but opaque “EU values” are used as justification.

The Commission does refer to Articles 2 and 6 of the Lisbon Treaty. But where the legitimacy to ban "all forms of hate crimes and hate speech" comes from, even if it relates to "gender identity", remains vague - the term is not found in either article. On the contrary, the treaty signed 20 years ago is highly reactionary when it interprets dual gender as the norm. Article 2 only knows the “equality of women and men”.

"Instead of a minimum standard for freedom of expression, the EU wants a minimum standard for censorship"
Of course, that won't stop the EU Commission from wanting to implement its woken ideas across the entire EU area - to the detriment of the free word. "Hate is hate - and nobody should put up with it," is a quote from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the beginning of the document. Anyone who commits a “hate crime” in Germany can then also be arrested in Portugal.

Brussels and the national governments would thus have an instrument with unknown effects on freedom of expression. The outcome of the Räsänen case is therefore a signal for the EU Commission. As Paul Coleman, director of ADF International, the organization representing Räsänen, put it in the European Conservative: “Instead of introducing a minimum standard of protection for freedom of expression, the EU is trying to do the opposite: introduce a minimum standard of criminal censorship. But is the prosecution of a political leader because she share her deep-rooted beliefs really something we want to be big on across the continent?”

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