On January 14, 2005, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief (friend of the court) (PDF format) in defense of a religious leader’s right to preach. The Becket Fund defended the freedom to manifest religious belief through public preaching on the basis of Sweden’s legal commitments to universal human rights. Specifically, the brief cited the individual’s right to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the right to equal protection of the laws, which are guaranteed in Articles 18, 19, and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
On June 29, 2003, Pentecostal Pastor Ake Green from Borgholm, Sweden was sentenced to one month of imprisonment for preaching a sermon which cited Biblical texts on homosexuality. The sermon was published in a local newspaper and Pastor Green was prosecuted for causing offense to the homosexual community.
The Becket Fund explained that Pastor Green’s sermon fell squarely within Article 18’s protection of the “freedom . . . in community with others . . . to manifest his religion or belief in . . . teaching.” The fact that Pastor Green taught a controversial religious viewpoint that offended some individuals did not remove his religious teaching from Article 18’s protections.
The Becket Fund’s brief explained that religious leaders are particularly vulnerable to censorship by laws that limit speech according to feelings of offense. Because religious leaders have a sacred duty to teach from texts that lay claim to eternal truths, they cannot simply moderate their teaching according to fluctuations in social mores. Clergy around the world, from Bishop Desmond Tutu to Pope John Paul XXIII, have preached messages that caused offense. However, the interpretation given to Sweden’s Persecution Law by the court in Pastor Green’s case forces religious teachers to choose between their clerical vows and obedience to the state.
The right to enjoy a freedom is only as secure as it is for the smallest minority, the individual. By limiting Ake Green’s freedom of speech, the Government of Sweden places new limits on speech for all its citizens. Such censorship undermines Sweden’s ultimate goal – advancement of a society in which numerous, distinct ethnic, religious, and cultural groups are present and tolerated. In pluralistic societies, very few values are shared by all. Often times the only shared value is the belief that we must respect each other’s differences. Countries, like Sweden, which genuinely desire open dialogue between diverse groups do so best by strenuously protecting freedom of speech.
Pastor Green’s appeal was heard on January 20, 2005. The prosecution called for Pastor Green to be sentenced to six months in prison.
On February 11, 2005, the Göta Court of Appeals overturned Ake Green's conviction. The court ruled that Sweden’s free speech laws protected Pastor Green from prosecution, accepting the argument from The Becket Fund’s brief that the guarantee of freedom of expression means that “it is not the role of a government composed of men to declare what is orthodoxy by punishing those who publicly teach one religious view of what is right, even if that view may offend others.”
The court ruled that Pastor Green had a right to preach about “the Bible's categorical condemnation of homosexual relations as a sin,” even if such views were “alien to most citizens.”
Map of Sweden
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=sweden&Mode=d&SubMode=w
The State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report on Sweden
IRF Report- http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35486.htm
News Reports
http://www.dagen.com/nyheter/artikel.asp?ID=79706
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006191
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=30655