SWEDEN’S Supreme Court has cleared website editor Leif Liljeström of charges of acting as an accessory to incitement to hatred of homosexuals.Liljeström, who runs the Christian website Bibeltemplet, was previously sentenced to one month in prison by the Court of Appeal for allowing the publication of hateful comments about homosexuality.
He was originally sentenced to two months in jail for incitement to hatred by Stenungsund District Court.
If the Swedes had a law against crap websites, Liljeström would have received an additional 12 months. Bibeltemplet has to be the messiest site we’ve ever encountered.
The Supreme Court ruled that Liljeström may not have been fully aware that the comments posted by visitors to the website constituted incitement to hatred. He told the court that he had thought long and hard about removing the offending posts before eventually allowing them to remain on the site where they could serve to generate further discussion.
One of the more extreme comments posted by a visitor to a discussion forum thread entitled “Sodomy” wrote:
Men who cannot summon up the energy to abstain from intercourse with other men should be sentenced to death and hanged from posts in the town square.
Although he did not remove it, Leifström did in fact criticise this statement and several others on the site’s discussion forum.
The Supreme Court ruling was not unanimous, with two judges calling for a conviction. The judges, Per Virdesten and Ella Nyström, argued that:
The statements [posted to the website] went far beyond the bounds of reasoned debate and can be considered deeply insulting to homosexuals as a group.
See full report here, and read gay Swedish writer Christopher L K Aqurette’s defence of outspoken hate here.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 20th, 2007 at 5:37 am
So Sweden’s against free speech too. It’s getting hard to find a decent country to live in these days.