Finnish church and state holding hands
The U.S. gets knocked for (rightfully so) combining church and state issues, even though the U.S. constitution deliberately mentions a seperate of church and state – but in Finland where church and state are not seperated, many Finns have this illusion that they are autonomous from one another – yet Finland still has cases like these that proves the state and church are practically holding hands…
Parliament has rejected a proposal to impose copyright fees on music performed during religious services. The proposal was rejected by a vote of 91 to 58 in the first reading.
If the proposal is passed in the second reading, it will still have to be voted on by the next Parliament; the Parliament’s Constitution Committee felt that the proposal had implications for religious freedom, and therefore required the procedure of a constitutional amendment for passage.
Supporters of the proposal say that the aim of the bill is to treat producers of religious music equally, and to encourage the composition of new hymns. Most hymns performed at Finnish churches are hundreds of years old.
Under present law, churches pay copyright fees for church concerts.
The parliament is arguing about hymns, while for the rest of us more important issue is how this new copyright proposal restricts individuals’ rights to override CD or DVD copy protection to make backups for personal use or copy music to MP3 players. Also, re-selling of media (CDs, DVDs) which are bought outside the ETA area (e.g. Asia, the US) would be illegal. While the parliemant is worried about piracy and wants to restrict illegal sales of CDs and DVDs, they’re completely forgetting about the fact that people buy music and movies from abroad simply because they’re not available here in Finland, and that taking legally purchased music with you on an MP3 player is getting increasingly popular.
Comment by Pete — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 12:19 am
Excellent points, Pete!
Comment by Phil — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 12:27 am
Does “music performed during religious services” cover also other religions than just The Church you are talking about?
But a case showing the state and the church are holding hands… “yhteisövero”.
Comment by Eino-Kalevi — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 3:06 am
Yeah, I think it’s sad that they are making a very, very bad law and the only thing that get knocked down is the most insignificant one. And the only one that would actually benefit artists, not just kick consumers in the nuts.
Comment by Toveri — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 6:45 am
This is probably the only thing that you and Tarja H. are agreeing with, and that is the role of the church and state (it should be separated).
I wonder if that will be a referendum or a constitutional change soon to make the churches separate from the state.
Comment by Philip — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 9:05 am
Yep, it’s truly revolting that this sort of law that practically flushes several consumer rights down the toiled in benefit of the international record industry (see http://www.effi.org/tekijanoikeus/laki/tekijanoikeus-faq.html) goes through without any fuss, the only thing caught by the media radar being this minor detail with Church.
Besides, aren’t most the chants they play in the Church too old to be covered by the copyright fee anyway?
If I was a satanist would I get free heavy music?
Comment by Praise the RIAA, touch the screen, heal heal — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 10:25 am
I agree, state and church should be separated.
Comment by M — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 11:36 am
They definitely should be separated. Religion(s) should still be taught at schools since it’s important to know about it, just like it’s important to know about your history, but there should be no praying, religious singing or anything that violates the separation of church & state.
Comment by Mikko Sandt — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 4:33 pm
Religion(s) should still be taught at schools since it’s important to know about it, just like it’s important to know about your history, but there should be no praying, religious singing or anything that violates the separation of church & state.
I don’t recall a single word of prayer being uttered in religion class during my 12 years at school . Granted, religion in the early grades is little more than content-free religious indoctrination (although I recall a teacher telling stories which I very much later discovered being from apocryphal, even Gnostic gospels) and should be done away with. Religion should start at the 5th grade or so, along with history.
By the way, if religious studies violate the hypothetical separation of church and state, do foreign languages violate the Finnish constitution which defines the official languages of Finland?
Comment by Anonymous — Sat, Sep 10th, 2005 @ 5:16 pm
I don’t recall a single word of prayer being uttered in religion class during my 12 years at school .
You never said a grace before eating? Or during morning prayers?
Comment by Mikko Sandt — Sun, Sep 11th, 2005 @ 2:53 am
You never said a grace before eating? Or during morning prayers?
Grace, yes, but never during religion class. I don’t remember any morning prayers, but it’s been a while.
Comment by Anonymous — Sun, Sep 11th, 2005 @ 11:03 am
If you think Finnish church and state are too tied together, come to Italy, where you are FORCED to give 0.8% of your tax to the church. If you don’t, you’ll pay it anyway as tax.
Cheers,
mac
Comment by mac — Sun, Sep 11th, 2005 @ 2:38 pm
Damn! They’re trying to make the new copyright shit into the constitution!
Comment by sepisp — Mon, Sep 12th, 2005 @ 2:57 am
I went to a normal Finnish school starting 1982, I think. We never said grace for lunch – most of the time that would have hugely impractical, anyway. Some sort of morning thing (aamunavaus) happened once a week or so if I remember right, but most of the time it was not particularly religious (teachers took turns to read some instructional story or poetry or give a little talk about something they thought important, whatever they wished to do). If there were any prayers, and that didn’t happen a lot, no one was forced to join in.
No prayers during religion classes, either. We did sing hymns and spiritual songs sometimes when we were learning about church music (both religion and music classes), if that helps.
Comment by Paula — Mon, Sep 12th, 2005 @ 3:47 pm
But concerning church and state, the church was the state until relatively recently. The reason the church has the right for taxation is because the church administration *was* the tax administration originally.
Comment by sepisp — Mon, Sep 12th, 2005 @ 10:55 pm
The decline of the Finnish state church in power and influence also saw the rise of the welfare state, especially as espoused by the demarit. The welfare state filled the void, becoming the vehicle for altruistic, social activity, instead of the church. But it would be a mistake to assume that the church’s legacy was curtailed; the reality is that the moral certitude of the church was eagerly, consciously adopted by the welfare state. The welfare state exhibits the same kind of self-evidential thinking that was the mainstay of the church for so many centuries. And it practices the same kinds of strategies the church always did in order to keep its hold on power.
Comment by Finnpundit — Tue, Sep 13th, 2005 @ 9:39 pm