By Peter J. Smith
FARSUND, Norway, July 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Norwegian newspaper and politician are facing charges for “promoting discrimination on the basis of sexual preference” reports Aftenposten, a Norwegian news source.
Odd Djøseland, a member of Norway’s Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) and member of the local healthcare commission, submitted a letter to the editor of Farsunds Avis, in which he pined for a community beach that heterosexuals could enjoy without homosexuals “drooling” over them.
“I therefore want a beach in our community that’s free of gays and lesbians, a place where we normal, heterosexual people can sunbathe and swim in peace and quiet,” said Djøseland in a letter he maintained was written in a “humorous vein,” according to Aftenposten.
However, a number of individuals have strongly reacted to Djøseland’s letter, and are pursuing criminal and legal options against Djøseland as well as the newspaper Farsunds Avis.
“It makes me furious that a profiled local politician would write something like this,” said Bent Sandvand to the NTB news bureau. Sandvand, a bisexual local resident, filed a police report on Monday against Djøseland since Djøseland’s letter had “offended and insulted” him.
Another local resident, Marianne Singsaas, has also filed a complaint against Farsunds Avis, but the newspaper’s editor, Steinar Spjelkaviknes, defended printing the letter. “I was never in doubt that the letter should be printed,” Spjelkaviknes wrote in his own column, “We must dare to print opinions that we don’t like.”
Despite the convictions of the editor of Farsunds Avis, many conservatives in Northern Europe say that the continent has become increasingly hostile to free speech, fostering a climate of fear and intimidation against anybody who speaks opinions contrary to the homosexual lobby. Earlier this year Rev. Ake Green was forced to answer to charges under Swedish hate-crime laws for delivering a sermon in 2004 condemning immoral behaviour in which he said, “sexual abnormalities are a deep cancerous tumor in the entire society”; he was ultimately acquitted of the charges.
In 2005 a Norwegian Socialist Left Party (SV) member called for hate-crime legislation forbidding discrimination against homosexuals. Similar legislation elsewhere, however, most especially in Canada, has resulted in severe restrictions on freedom of speech. In Canada, for instance, hate-crime legislation has seen Roman Catholic bishop Fred Henry hauled before human rights tribunals for nothing more than reiterating the teachings of his Church.