Explainer: Is Päivi's conviction misunderstood?

Remind me what the Päivi case is all about...

It's about Päivi Räsänen, a Finnish Christian politician who has just been convicted by the country's Supreme Court after expressing traditional, Biblical views on sexuality.

That sounds pretty terrible, and a real blow to the freedom to express Christian views on these matters...

That's certainly how many have interpreted it. No less an august institution than The Washington Post described it as "a free speech farce" in an editorial. "Finland is often ranked as the happiest country on Earth, but that's only if you like cold winters and harsh limitations on freedom of expression," it thundered. "If Finland is able to do this to a sitting member of its legislature and a clergyman [Päivi's co-defendant, Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola] who chairs an international organisation with millions of members, no less notable person can feel comfortable expressing similar views in public."

Website First Things said: "This is not a matter of one panel of judges getting the balance slightly off. The problem is the framework itself. Hate speech laws vest in the state a power to decide which opinions may be expressed and which must be suppressed. Once that power exists, it will be exercised. Across Europe, we see that it is most routinely exercised against anyone whose views the prevailing consensus finds uncomfortable."