American legal groups defending religious liberty say they are pleased with the acquittal of a Swedish pastor who had been charged with a hate crime after calling homosexuals a “cancerous tumor” in society.
Pastor Ake Green was acquitted Nov. 29 by Sweden’s Supreme Court. Green had received a one-month jail sentence for his statement in a sermon about gays and lesbians. An appeals court first acquitted him in February, saying his preaching was not an attack on gays and lesbians because it was a personal interpretation of the Bible.
Sweden’s highest court upheld the ruling. The case attracted international attention with the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filing a brief urging the high court to affirm the ruling.
“To muzzle a preacher and mute a religious message simply because the expression is offensive to one, some or many, is a fundamental mistake concerning a fundamental right,” said Jared Leland, spokesman for The Becket Fund. “The issue before the court was neither homosexuality nor society’s perception of homosexual conduct. The issue was religious liberty.”
The Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based legal group, helped coordinate the filing of friend-of-the-court briefs in Green’s case. “Voicing one’s conscience is a fundamental human right,” said Benjamin Bull, the fund’s chief counsel. “This is a huge victory for religious liberty everywhere.”
John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville, Va.-based civil liberties organization, also said he was pleased with the Swedish court’s decision.
“A pastor giving a sermon — there’s no threat of imminent danger,” he said. “When there’s no threat of imminent danger, it should be protected by any kind of decent human rights law.” (RNS)
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