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William Kilpatrick<\/a> – February 25, 2022<\/p>\n P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen is a member of the Finnish Parliament, a former minister of the interior, a public speaker and the mother of five grown children.<\/p>\n She faces a heavy fine and two years in prison for quoting the Bible.\u00a0 In response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church\u2019s affiliation with the Helsinki LGBT Pride event, she posted the Bible passage from Romans<\/em> 1: 24-27 which condemns homosexual behavior.<\/p>\n Finnish prosecutors stated that the use of the word \u201csin\u201d could be harmful<\/a>, and alleged that Ms. R\u00e4s\u00e4nen\u2019s comments were made to cause intolerance, contempt, and hatred toward homosexuals.<\/p>\n But couldn\u2019t the prosecutor\u2019s remarks cause intolerance, contempt and hatred toward Ms. R\u00e4s\u00e4nen?\u00a0 If criticizing another person\u2019s beliefs or behavior is a hate crime, then isn\u2019t she the victim of a hate crime?<\/p>\n The court prosecutors worried that the word \u201csin\u201d could be harmful.\u00a0 One supposes they mean harmful to one\u2019s self-esteem.\u00a0 And, indeed, the list of sins in Romans<\/em> 1: 24-32 is meant to make you feel bad about yourself.\u00a0 From a Biblical perspective, acknowledgment of sin, followed by repentance, leads on to salvation.\u00a0 In other words, feeling bad about your behavior is, in some cases, a good thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not only homosexual behavior that is condemned in Romans<\/em> I.\u00a0 The extended passage condemns all manner of sins including idolatry, deceitfulness, envy, gossip, slander, and disobedience to parents.<\/p>\n From one point of view this is highly offensive and insulting to those disposed to deceitfulness and slander.\u00a0 From another point of view, it can be looked upon as highly therapeutic\u2014a moment of self-recognition that leads on to change.<\/p>\n Prosecutors should have no difficulty understanding the concept.\u00a0 After all, they apply painful therapeutics as a matter of course.\u00a0 They hope that a heavy fine or a dose of prison will force the criminal to recognize his crimes and put himself on the road to rehabilitation.<\/p>\n Increasingly, however, prosecutors are prosecuting \u201cthought crimes\u201d rather than real crimes, and courts are using hurt feelings as a criterion for making decisions.\u00a0 Take the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian woman who was found guilty of \u201cinciting hatred\u201d by an Austrian Court because of her assertion that the prophet Muhammad was a pedophile.\u00a0 In 2018, the ruling was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights which held that her right to freedom of expression was outweighed by \u201cthe right of others to have their religious feelings protected<\/a>.\u201d In short, feelings trumped facts, and the alleged pain caused to Muslims by the \u201cslander\u201d of their prophet became the deciding factor.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.frontpagemag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" William Kilpatrick – February 25, 2022 P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen is a member of the Finnish Parliament, a former minister of the interior, a public speaker and the mother of five grown children. She faces a heavy fine and two years in prison for quoting the Bible.\u00a0 In response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church\u2019s affiliation with the … Continue reading Freedom of Religion on Trial in Finland<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[175,177,125,13680,1758,1077,234,16313,241,26],"class_list":["post-20710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-horse","tag-christianity","tag-christians","tag-church","tag-elisabeth-sabaditsch-wolff","tag-european-court-of-human-rights","tag-finland","tag-lgbt","tag-paivi-rasanen","tag-persecution","tag-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-5o2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20722,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710\/revisions\/20722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}