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Gay News: 30,000 people have quit the Finnish state church in one week following a TV debate on gay rights and marriage.
By: Nigel Robinson
24,000 left within a week
24,000 left within a week
Thousands leave Finnish Church over gay rights
21 October 2010
The two-hour live debate on the popular current affairs programme Ajankohtainen kakkonen was broadcast on Network 2 of the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation on 12 October.
During the course of the debate politicians and church official discussed gay rights with many of the participants making anti-gay statements and criticising gay marriage.
Matti Repo, the Bishop of Tampere, said that he would never bless a same-sex union, because it went against the Bible’s teachings.
Civil partnerships are legal in Finland, but not gay marriage, although according to a survey 54 per cent of the population support it.
Another participant, Ms Paivi Räsänen, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, said that “obviously a person knows that if they are in a homosexual relationship they are doing something wrong from the Christian viewpoint.”
During the course of the programme, 220 people left Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, more than double the number for an ordinary day.
The number of people quitting the church increased after the debate and gathered momentum until 24,000 people had resigned from the church within a week, according to official statistics. The figure is now said to stand at 30,000.
Almost 80 per cent of Finns are members of the church and pay a church tax which is collected by the state.
People can resign from their Church and stop paying Church taxes either through a magistrate, or through the popular and easily accessible eroakirkosta website.
It is estimated that the current resignations will cost the church more than 7 million Euros a year.
Much of the criticism has been directed at Paivi Räsänen. Stefan Wallin, minister in charge of church affairs, said she should bear responsibility for the record number of people leaving the church.
He told the Helsinki Times: “If Räsänen’s objective is to prune the church’s membership register and turn back the church’s clock, she should be honest about it… at a time when the consequences of her views – views that lead to inequality – begin to affect the church’s reputation as well as its finances.”
