Sweden Moves to Criminalize Religious Beliefs

[JohnIII]

Fox, credible? Mwahahaha.

I can't find it on Reuters, either. I give up.

Mark, see what I mean about it being a crap article?

[Kropotkin]

I've checked out the Swedish parliaments decisions last week. There's the decision to give homosexual couples the possiblity to apply for adoption. But I can't see anything about this story....

[Stefu]

Somehow, I'm getting this image of pork industry challenging Moslem groups because they're opposing pork-eating. Or meat industry in general going after Hindus. Precedents, precedents...

If true, it would be just another silly law coming out of Sweden, even though this would be particularily offensive case of thought policing. Good old social engineering! Too bad it doesn't work in real life as well as it does in SMAC.

Article, though, doesn't come from most trustworthy source in the world. It could be a case of more innocent (though even my conception of what the more innocent version of this would be still would go against principles of free speech) law being misrepresented. And I loved this quote from end of the article:

Enochson added pro-homosexual activists will soon be lobbying to make homosexual marriages legal in Sweden.

It's like they're saying that now after homosexual activists have legislated for less freedom they'll do something EVEN MORE EVIL and LEGISLATE FOR MORE FREEDOM! BOOGA WOOGA WOOGA WOOGA!

Do we have our resident Swedes ready to give straight dope on this?

[Kropotkin]

Wait, I've found it. It wasn't last week though. It seems to be a law that adds homosexual, bisexual etc to the law against "hets mot folkgrupp". Ie, persecution/agitation against group of people. The same has been done before as it's against the law to persecute and agaitate against jews etc.

[Lincoln]

I tried to look it up but I got stumped when it said "logga in".

[Lincoln]

okay where is the link...

[JohnIII]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Wait, I've found it. It wasn't last week though. It seems to be a law that adds homosexual, bisexual etc to the law against "hets mot folkgrupp". Ie, persecution/agitation against group of people. The same has been done before as it's against the law to persecute and agaitate against jews etc.

And did your resident Nazis kick up a fuss about that?

[Kropotkin]

It's in Swedish... But I'll see if they've got a translation.

[Kropotkin]

Nope, no luck with the link....

I'd say that the article at the top streches it a bit. It does not seem to be a law against speaking against the lifestyle but against percecuting of homosexuals.

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by JohnIII

And did your resident Nazis kick up a fuss about that?

IIRC there are very very few ultra-right-wingers in Sweden...I could be wrong, though.

[Monk]

I checked out some Danish and Swedish sites on homosexuality.

The Swedish Parliament has moved to within one step of changing the nation’s constitution to ban speech or materials opposing homosexuality and any other alternate lifestyles.

Herein lies the error. Like the wise Kropotkin points out so wisely, Sweden isn't moving to ban anything "opposing homosexuality". If this was the case, you could be sure it would be getting actual international attention. They're going to include homosexuality in the category of hate speech. There's a huge difference here. I know Denmark has a similar law, which IIRC was last enforced when a politician expressed his concern "The Muslims who come here are merely waiting until they're strong enough in numbers, before they take over the country and blahblahblah." And of course the hate speech legislation will still apply when the hate comes from a Christian priest in a church.

Lincoln, I checked out the Family.org site, and really... you should get your information from less biased sites, or at least be more critical about what you read. No offense meant. But from the little reading I've done, I'm tempted to say the bible-thumpers yet again prove to the world they haven't got a clue what's going on outside their own back yard, much less in Sweden.

"The real intent is to criminalize Christianity" my ass. I'd like the "journalist" in question to answer me, if Sweden seeks to criminalize Christianity, how that legislation would ever get around the eighty-something percent of the Swedes who are members of the national Protestant church... but I don't think I'd get a serious answer anyway.

[Kropotkin]

I of cource second the wise monk and his post that he has written so wisley.

[Monk]

IIRC there are very very few ultra-right-wingers in Sweden...I could be wrong, though.

There are about ten times as many as in Denmark, despite the fact that Sweden is only roughly twice as big. The common theory is that it's because the new right-wave seems to have passed Sweden by, leaving little room for the aggressive loonies.

[Kropotkin]

Yeah, there's a couple around but we don't elect them to parliament as in Denmark and a number of other states.

[Vesayen]

Apparently these morons didnt learn a lesson about liberty from WW2......