By 
The Finnish Supreme Court has convicted parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen on one charge related to her expression of her Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics.
In the 3-2 decision, the court said Räsänen’s criminal conviction over the distribution of a 2004 pamphlet alongside her Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola was for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group” under a section of the Finnish criminal code titled “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.”
“I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression,” Räsänen said in a March 26 press release from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International. “I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith, and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square.”
The court acquitted Räsänen of charges related to the 2019 Bible verse tweet that sparked the parliamentarian’s legal battle.
In it, she quoted Romans 1:24–27 and questioned how the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland could sponsor an LGBT Pride event, asking how what Scripture calls “shame and sin” could be presented as “a matter of pride.”
Räsänen said she is looking into appealing her case to the European Court of Human Rights.
“This is not about my free speech alone but that of every person in Finland. A positive ruling would help to prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal for simply sharing their beliefs,” she said in a statement.
The latest decision comes after Räsänen was previously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts in early 2022 and 2023 over the tweet, pamphlet, and a 2019 radio debate.
The Supreme Court heard Räsänen’s case again in October 2025 following a third appeal by the prosecution regarding the tweet and pamphlet, delivering its latest decision on March 26. The prosecution did not appeal the radio debate.
Social media reactions
ADF Senior Legal Counsel Sean Nelson described the Finnish Court’s decision as “Truly Year Zero, Orwellian thinking” in a March 26 social media post.
“I can’t express how enraging and unjust this decision is,” he said. “No one ever filed a complaint about her pamphlet written 20 years ago. The prosecutors only found out because of a witch hunt after her Bible tweet, dredging anything they could up.”
Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, reacted to the news on social media, describing the conviction as “part of a broader trend I’ve been warning about where Western countries are prosecuting Christians.”
“As a Christian country, the U.S. cannot stand idly by and watch as the Christian foundations of the West are destroyed,” he said.
Father Benedict Kiely, founder of Nazarean.org, also weighed in on the decision, writing that Räsänen “is the canary in the coal mine for freedom of expression and religious freedom in Europe.”
“And now the canary — and the Bible — have been found guilty,” he said.
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Surely she did not have hate in her heart; more likely like concern.
An Orwellian and not very intelligent move by the Finnish judges. One of the realities of free speech is that someone might be offended. The response to which is, “so what?” She was expressing her valid yet non-violent thoughts on a moral issue. In most free societies, you are permitted to do this. It would appear the Finns are rapidly sliding down the same rabbit hole as the Brits in terms of abandoning traditional European standards of freedom. After all, nobody wants to offend the crazies, nor the very loud minority of people who support the crazie’s version of reality. When you abandon Christianity, you abandon what made the West, the West.
At some point they will understand what they destroyed but it will be too late to undo the damage.
Shape of things to come.
The reality is that the majority of the Supreme Court Judges in Finland are uncivilized totalitarian activists, as were the majority of Supreme Court Justices in the US in 2015 in the Obergefell anti-marriage decision.
Judges who don’t believe in God, or at bare minimum natural law, simply refer to no authority, they are like the Roman Emperors who declared themselves to be God.
Canada is about to follow suit with the passage of the “anti-hate speech bill” (it could more accurately be called the anti-Christian bill) Bill C-9, which will make it illegal to quote passages of the Bible which the government deem as “hateful”. The pro-LGBT and pro-abortion politicians are drooling in anticipation of enforcing this bill! The liberals shut down debate in parliament and ram-rodded it through to the liberal-stacked senate. Christians in Canada are not safe!
As I started reading this article, the first things that came to mind were Ionesco’s play *Rhinocéros* and Orwell’s *1984*. The fact that these were educated judges in Finnish society arriving at such an outlandish conclusion is striking evidence that Finland, a country and a people I’ve long both loved and admired, has stepped into the realm of the absurd. Now, more than ever, the world needs classically educated scholars producing high-quality opinions and articles. Reversing the obvious decline in education over the past fifty years will take time.
Tension between specular interests that perceive equal justice for all forms of behavior and Christianity has expanded to criminalization of the expression of Christian belief. Injustice prevails. That evidence is the freedom permitted homosexuals, the multifarious forms of perverse behavior to openly advertise, extol their lifestyle while the Christian is subject to legal condemnation for simply expressing theirs.
This is the dilemma of the radical secularization that promotes equanimity, which by nature prohibits and criminalizes moral justice. If we abandon divine law and the primacy of belief in God that of itself places us on the side of God’s opposite, evil and the satanic.
We all know the history–Christianity serves as the foundation of Western culture. We’ve also read of the increasing frequency of attacks on Christianity and free speech across Europe and this is a bizarre example. This won’t end well.
Your words cause us to reflect on Isaiah 5:20: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Thank you.
Do you know where the woman will receive zero support? From a Catholic Church led by Francis 2.0 .
They( the Finnish courts) were always going to get their pound of flesh with this noble woman! Now is the time to remember your Christmas dignity ( Pope Leo the Great)!!!!