22,000 leave church over homophobia

A backlash in response to anti-gay comments made during a televised debate on same-sex marriage has seen more than 22,000 members of the national Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland leave the church in just one week.

On October 12 Finnish current affairs show A2 Teema hosted a panel discussion on moves to legalise same-sex marriage in Finland. Leena Huovinen, a Christian pastor who blesses same-sex couples, Oras Tynkkynen, an openly gay MP with the Finnish Green League Party, Manne Maalismaa, a representative of GLBT rights group SETA, and the current Mr Gay Finland, Lenneth Liukkonen, all spoke in favour of gender neutral marriage laws for the Scandinavian nation.

However, against marriage equality were the chairwoman of Finland’s Christian Democrats Party, Päivi Räsänen (pictured), Lutheran Vicar Matti Repo and Pentti Oinonen, an MP with the True Finns anti-immigration party.

Bible-based arguments made by these speakers against same-sex relationships offended viewers, particularly comments made by Räsänen, a high profile member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which were deemed homophobic by many commentators.

In the week following the show, upwards of 22,000 members of Finland’s state Lutheran church resigned from their religion through the website Eroakirkosta.fi.

Approximately 300,000 Finns have formally renounced the religions they were confirmed in at birth since freedom of religion laws allowing them to do so were passed in 2003, but the average to do so in a normal week is less than 800. Senior clergy are now concerned that the resignations may hurt the church financially, with an annual loss of 2 million Euros in state funding now expected.

Lutheran Archbishop Karl Mäkinen has called on liberal Lutherans to stay, stressing the diversity of views within the church.

However, conservative Lutherans have been threatening to cease solemnising marriages altogether if gays and lesbian couples are allowed to wed.

A majority of Finns support same-sex marriage, as do a majority of the country’s parliamentarians.