Finland's Supreme Court found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of agitation against a minority group over a pamphlet she published in 2004. The 3-2 decision orders Räsänen to pay a fine of 1,800 euros ($2,080) and prohibits physical and digital copies of the pamphlet from being distributed.

The pamphlet, titled "Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity," described homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder. According to the Christian Post, Räsänen co-authored it with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland. It was written more than 20 years ago.

A grandmother of 12, a former party leader, a former interior minister of Finland, convicted over a pamphlet older than some of the judges' clerks.

How a tweet unraveled two decades of silence

The investigation into Räsänen didn't begin because of the pamphlet. It began because of a tweet. In 2019, she quoted Romans 1:24-27 to rebuke the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for promoting LGBT "pride month." She questioned how the church could agree with "shame and sin" being presented as "a matter of pride."

Police opened an investigation shortly after criminal complaints were filed. Investigators then reached back to the 2004 pamphlet as additional grounds for prosecution. The Supreme Court actually acquitted Räsänen over the 2019 tweet. But it convicted her over the pamphlet, a document that predates the very law used to prosecute her.

Paul Coleman, executive director of ADF International, which has supported Räsänen's defense, condemned the ruling:

"This decision will create a severe chilling effect for everyone's right to speak freely."

He called the conviction "an outrageous example of state censorship" built on a law that did not exist when the pamphlet was written.

Three trials, two acquittals, one reversal

This was not Räsänen's first time in court over these charges. She and Pohjola were acquitted twice, unanimously, including by a three-judge District Court of Helsinki. They faced their third trial last October. The Supreme Court's slim majority overturned what two lower courts had already settled.

The court itself seemed to acknowledge the thinness of its own case. In its ruling, the Supreme Court noted:

"It must be taken into account that the text forming the basis for the conviction did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred. The conduct is therefore not particularly serious in terms of the nature of the offense."

No incitement to violence. No threat. Not "particularly serious." And yet: guilty. Fined. Censored.

The court further acknowledged that Räsänen "justified her opinion by citing a biblical text." So the state concedes the pamphlet was nonviolent, religiously grounded, and not particularly serious, then punishes her anyway. The conviction under Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code, dealing with "agitation against a minority group," rests on the charge of "making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group."

That's the legal standard: insult. Not a threat. Not incitement. Insult.

A heresy trial in a Western democracy

Coleman did not mince words when Räsänen's prosecution was still working its way through Finnish courts. In a 2024 statement, he drew a comparison that grows harder to dismiss with each successive trial:

"In a democratic Western nation in 2024, nobody should be on trial for their faith — yet throughout the prosecution of Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola, we have seen something akin to a 'heresy' trial, where Christians are dragged through court for holding beliefs that differ from the approved orthodoxy of the day."

The framing matters. Räsänen led Finland's Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015. She served as the country's interior minister from 2011 to 2015. She is not a fringe figure shouting into a void. She is an elected official who expressed, in writing and online, a theological position held by billions of Christians worldwide. The Finnish state has now declared that position criminal.

This is how speech codes operate in practice. They don't start with mainstream opinions. They start at the margins. They establish the principle that certain ideas are too offensive to exist in public, and then the circle of acceptable discourse tightens. The pamphlet wasn't banned in 2004. It wasn't banned in 2010, 2015, or 2019. It was banned now, retroactively, because the political environment shifted enough to make prosecution viable.

What comes next

Räsänen said she was "shocked and profoundly disappointed" by the ruling and its failure to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression." She signaled that she is not finished fighting:

"I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal 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."

Last month, Räsänen attended a prayer gathering of national repentance at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and testified to the U.S. Congress about the growing hostility toward free speech in Europe. At the time, it may have sounded like advocacy. Now it sounds like prophecy confirmed by her own government.

The Finnish Supreme Court has established, by the narrowest possible margin, that a Christian pamphlet containing no threats and no incitement can be criminalized because it insults a group. The conviction is for words. The punishment is censorship. The precedent is that your theological convictions are subject to state approval, and that approval can be revoked decades after you expressed them.

Räsänen put it plainly: "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."

Finland just told her that the square has a gate on it now.