Finland politician fined for calling homosexuality a 'developmental disorder'

HELSINKI - 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 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.

"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.

Rasanen called the outcome "a shock" and told reporters she would consider appealing the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.

Finnish government ministers from Rasanen's party and the nationalist Finns Party immediately called for freedom of speech and legislative changes.

"The law on incitement against a group should be amended," Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio of the Finns Party, a devout Christian himself, told reporters.

The Supreme Court acquitted Rasanen of a separate charge based on a picture of a quote from the Bible condemning gay relations, which she shared in a social media post in 2019.

In February, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives invited Rasanen to speak about her case at its Judiciary Committee in Washington, at a hearing entitled "Europe's Threat to American Speech and Innovation".

($1 = 0.8649 euros)

-Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Editing by Hugh Lawson/Reuters