Posted on 07/23/2004 8:29:49 PM PDT by JerseyHighlander
KDH defends priest [Note: Original Title]
By Martina Jurinová Spectator staff
HRUŠOVSKÝ (centre) defends criticism of homosexuals. photo: TASR
THE RECENT sentencing of a Swedish pastor to one month in jail for offending homosexuals has stirred protests by Slovakia's ruling Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), and one of the party's officials even took his personal protest to the Swedish ambassador in Slovakia, Cecilia Julin, on July 13.
Interior Minister Vladimír Palko told Julin that he had no choice but to protest the sentencing of the Pentecostal pastor, Ake Green, who was found guilty of offending homosexuals in a sermon that took place in 2003.
According to the global news service Ecumenical News International (ENI), Green described homosexuality as "abnormal, a horrible cancerous tumour in the body of society".
In an effort to protect freedom of expression, the KDH has organised a special press conference regarding the matter with the party's highest officials protesting the court's sentence. Palko even suggested that this was an example of how "a left wing liberal ideology was trying to introduce tyranny and misuse the EU for this purpose".
Palko said that this also explained why his party was against the approval of the anti-discrimination law in Slovakia. The legislation was approved just recently despite KDH's opposition.
"In Europe people are starting to be jailed for saying what they think," Palko said.
The KDH chairman, Pavol Hrušovský, added that this was "a breach of human rights, the right to religious freedom, and the right of expression".
After meeting with Palko, ambassador Julin said that states have the right to hold different opinions regarding court verdicts issued in other states. She added, however, that, "Swedish law states that public addresses cannot be used to instigate hatred towards a certain group."
The KDH's comments surprised their political peers and some even said that the Christian Democrat's protests may even put international blame on Slovakia.
Jozef Banáš, a member of another ruling party, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, said that the "KDH's activities are damaging to Slovakia".
He said that Palko's protest as well as a letter in the works that Hrušovský, speaker of Slovak parliament, plans to send to his Swedish colleague would make Slovaks look "like total idiots".
Marián Vojtek, head of a Slovak gay rights group Ganymedes, said to The Slovak Spectator that his group agreed with the Swedish court's verdict and hoped that the decision would stop people from speaking badly about homosexuals.
"If someone is making such statements publicly it should not go unnoticed because this is an incitement to hatred towards homosexuals. The same would apply if the person would be talking about any group of people whether it's Jews, black people, or anybody else," said Vojtek.
In regards to the KDH's opposition to the verdict, Vojtek said that it was typical of the party to "discuss homosexual issues during the political dry season".
According to Marián Gavenda, spokesman of the Slovak Conference of Bishops (KBS), "if a priest directly offends a person, laws apply to him just like to any other person."
He added, however, "we would be unhappy if, on the other hand, a civilian authority disabled the Church from calling things the right names. We would consider that discrimination," Gavenda said.
In an interview with The Slovak Spectator Gavenda also said that he did not consider news reports about Green's case to be sufficient for him to be able to carry out a thorough evaluation of the matter.
He noted that, "If he was only tried for condemnation of practiced homosexuality, which from the Biblical point of view as well as the point of view of the Church, is immoral the sentence was certainly unjust."
According to ENI, Soren Andersson from the Swedish Federation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, said that religious freedom could never be used as a reason to offend people.
In a statement issued by the KBS back in May of 1999, Gavenda said the Slovak bishops "differentiated between a person with homosexual orientation, to whom respect must be paid and who has to be incorporated into the common parish community life, and a person who practices homosexuality in intimate life with persons of the same sex."
"It is not considered right that marriages between persons of different sex who create families have the same social status as partnerships of homosexuals even though the possibility of child adoption by the latter type of partnership is refused," said Gavenda.
When asked what he thought about the KDH's opinion that the liberals and left-wing groups were trying to misuse the EU, Gavenda said: "It is true that in a social atmosphere created by the media as well as in the trends of the European legislation, a misuse of antidiscrimination laws can be observed in a sense that topics tabooed by liberal groups cannot be freely touched upon.
"In this sense it can be seen as a 'velvet tyranny'," he said.
"We think that in the 21 century all expressions of discrimination should be condemned. This case is even sadder because it involves a representative of the Church that is an institution that should spread reconciliation and good coexistence among people," Katarína Glonèáková-Golev, deputy chairwoman of the fellow ruling coalition member the New Citizen's Alliance, said in a media statement.
[7/19/2004]
LOL! Yeah, but, I mean other than that it's very broad minded and tolerant.
And in the churches, groups are studying the latest pop-church bestseller, the Purpose-Driven Profit or whatever the latest one is, and leaving Bibles largely untouched.
Well stated. It cannot compete on the level playing field of the marketplace of ideas. For liberals, politics is their religion.
Who'da thunk it 20 years ago...the government of Slovakia protesting religious persecution by the government of Sweden?
Coming to a town near you thanks to hate crime legislation. Chilling thought, isn't it?
But then Christians know they will be tortured, jailed, beheaded and killed for the faith in the end times.
In the meantime, we sit idly by while our politicians pass the very laws that will hang us. Vote them out of office.
"[Canada is doing this too.
We are surrounded...]"
Too late to circle the wagons,
The activist judges among us , who legislate from the bench, will bring these things to pass in the USA
The US military is sworn to protect and defend the constitution, I think the Marines should go string up the Supreme court BEFORE it's too late !
We've heard that before. We're getting tired of saving you from fascist tyrants.
We're busy fighting the socialist liberal crap that you exported to our country.
It's getting old with you Euroweenies.
Now it's jail, next it's gas. Then we have to save your a$$.
Nonsense. We simply have more targets now.
Saddle up. Lock & load.
This is a preview of coming attractions. It's coming to a Church near you, soon.
We'll have this problem right here, and probably very soon. For years they've been jailing priests and ministers for protesting at abortion clinics. Christianity is under full assault, from without and within.
" a left wing liberal ideology was trying to introduce tyranny
The Judeo-Christian communities in Europe better wake up, as well as here in the US. This is a scary glimpse into the future unless we stop the Tyranny of the Minority. Every Christian and Jewish person should see this article.
Exactly.
"Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him----" (Luke 17:3)
Calling all fence sitters...time is coming where the sides will be obvious and decisions will have to be made. God is already sounding the call....Are you for me or against me. Separation of sheep and goats. Seems we are losing our safe grey areas of complacancy. I don't think I have ever seen such a polarization, and so evenly split. But bottom line.... God says he has a remnant...which is merely a piece of the whole. We are going to be out numbered and we will have to make our stand. We don't lose, keep the faith, stay strong and get as close to Him as you can, its the ONLY safe place to be.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil," said Edmund Burke, "is that good men do nothing."
IF: A minor opposition politician makes a stump speech in Sweden, calling the current political oligarchy a corrupt, heathen, anti-moral and fascist regime worthy of open contempt and derision, scathing critique and formal protest. Will the politicians declare themselves a offended class/group of society, such as minorities or Jews, and declare the minor opposition politician a bigot worthy of a jail sentence for hate speech? On the slippery slope, it's not even a babystep away, and it's inevitably going to occur in one of the "liberal" Western countries in the EU, and set precedence over the entire EU.
IF: A Christian group made similar complaints against an Imam, would there be any action? Dhimmitude for the population, built up many times similarly during Muhammed's and original Caliphs' treaties with city-states on their borders. The Imam's followers will be above reproach as they acquire power and influence through any means necessary, until such time as open rebellion by the remaining few, or an outside force returns sovereignty to the native Swedes.
I don't consider myself religious, this news disgusts my very core beliefs, and scares me thoroughly. My Slovak side of the family escaped persecution in Slovakia, came to America and returned to fight and die in Eurpe during WWII. The tyranny of economic and religious persecution and fascist governments has returned, more powerful and guile than before.
I don't believe the EU, with a start date of the Euro currency circulation, will survive any longer than the 3rd Reich reign. The decline and fall has already started, the aftermath will leave the continent devastated once again.
What Judeo-Christian community? There are only isolated pockets of such people left in Europe. What passes for "Christianity" in most of the nations of the EU is a bloodless, state-supported church whose doctrine is nothing less than complete apostasy. All they do is to sponsor hordes of phony "refugees" - often members of the "religion of peace" - to colonize the country and spread their evil. Compassionate "conservatism" at its finest.
The most foolish and idiotic thing that the former Soviet bloc nations like Slovakia and Poland could ever have done was to hand over their newly attained sovereignty to an unaccountable cabal of leftist Eurocrats in Brussels. Hate speech laws like the one used to imprison Pastor Green are part of the EU's proposed constitution. It's so bad that they're attempting to force a monastery on Mt. Athos (which has been there a 1000 years and never allowed women on the site), to admit women visitors because some Dutch lesbians were unhappy. Here's what's even better: No matter what is said or how much killing is openly advocated in sermons delivered in Mosques, the leftists in charge of enforcing such speech codes will only go after Christian churches who don't kowtow to PC doctrines. The Muslims are part of the "oppressed other", you see. They are exempt from the PC codes in the same way that Farrakhan & Co. are exempt from the charge of racism irrespective of their genocidal rantings.
Oh, and BTW, that is the ultimate goal here in the USA as well. Don't be fooled by these leftists for a second - no matter how "reasonable" they sound.
Does that mean that Jacques Chirac has to be imprisoned (due to the fact that he offends me) or does he get off because he's a government official?
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