LGBT issues in Finland, tonight on Radio Free Finland
Listen tonight at 21.00 (GMT +2 / 2pm EST) on Radio Free Finland for the live interview with Jani Ryhänen, President of the Social Democratic Pink Rose organization, a political LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender) organization in Finland. We’ll be discussing LGBT issues in Finland.
UPDATE: Many many thanks to Jani Ryhänen for joining us this evening, and special thanks to everyone who participated in the live show! We discussed lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Finland and related topics. Finland is one of the leading countries in this regard but there’s still much room for improvement.
And here’s the podcast…
Download the show in MP3 format at 64kbps (19.3 MB - 41:28)
Download the show in AAC+ format at 24kbps (7.4 MB - 41:28)
Just on question for him. What about the kids? Do you care about kids and that they need a father and a Mom? Or do you just care (Like Madona) about “me”?
Its a simple 0 or 1 answer. If you truly care about the kids, the there are no LGBT rights. Otherwise you are all about “me”.
Comment by winter — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 6:55 am
An adopting gay/lesbian couple adopting cares about themselves and for their child in the exact same way as a heterosexual couple do. There’s no difference whatsoever.
Comment by Phil — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 9:38 am
Even by your standards Winter, that comment betrays a sense of intolerance and bigotry on a very large scale. However, my overwhelming feeling is of sorrow for you, it must be hard to get through a day in a happy mood with such thoughts about society.
In any case, comparing a famous and eccentric music star to any “normal” couple regardless of their sexuality is a little far fetched and serves as a useless comparison. You seem to be suggesting that gay and lesbian people have no abilty to care about children, which seems the talk of someone far removed from reality.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 10:04 am
Hey Phil, I’m looking forward to you interviewing a tranny. I don’t recall ever seeing one in Finland…..
Or maybe I had sex with one and didn’t realize it?
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
Is Madonna’s decision to adopt an African child really egocentric? She has given a lot of money to help orphanages in Malawi and it’s still not clear whether she can adopt, since Malawi has a law that prohibits foreigners from adopting kids from Malawi. Of course it’s a problematic decision and it may be the parents (I believe in Madonna’s case they or one of them is alive) are confused about whether to let Madonna adopt or not. Yet there are plenty of AIDS orphans in Africa who have no parents and adopting such a kid would be a humanitarian move, after all many celebrities are bound to follow Madonna’s lead, whatever she does, good or bad.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
Anouk Zijlma thinks that it’s cool that Madonna has put Malawi on the map:
http://goafrica.about.com/b/a/257233.htm
Even if Madonna is an eccentric and a bisexual living in a heterosexual marriage (perhaps Winter can’t stand the idea that Madonna’s many past partners include women as well as men), there are people who seriously think that she can make a difference for humanitarian causes.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
It was this story on Madonna and Malawi that I was trying to link to:
http://goafrica.about.com/b/a/257533.htm
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:31 pm
The story on Madonna’s adoption was that the kid’s mother died and the father left him in an orphanage. Initially the father and the family were thrilled about Madonna’s adoption but then the Malawian politicians opposed to adoption by foreigners started to make trouble and finally the father said he had not understood the kid would legally become Madonna’s son and he would have preferred to remain the child’s legal father.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6054236.stm
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
But, as the BBC story story stated, the child’s father had given his legal consent to Madonna adopting his son. Sorry about spamming you with these Madonna messages, my point was simply that I didn’t get it why Winter thought that Madonna would be any more selfish than he himself or any conservative is. Madonna has chosen to live in a marriage between one man and one woman, shouldn’t a conservative like Winter applaud that? Madonna is adopting a poor kid from Africa, don’t many American religious conservatives do the same? Madonna has amassed a huge fortune and is a business wizard, hasn’t Pat Robertson done the same? Where hasn’t she played by Winter’s book of rules?
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
I think this adoption issue has been discussed here earlier very thoroughly. Exhaustingly, one could say.
What other LGBT issues (if any) were discussed in this interview?
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
Did he say anything about how Finland, as the current leader of EU, could help the situation of LGBT people in less developed European countries (for example Poland and the Baltic States)? In Poland LGBT people are persecuted and harassed in a way one would not think possible in the year 2006. The situation there resembles Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
“In Poland LGBT people are persecuted and harassed in a way one would not think possible in the year 2006.”
I think we discussed that quite thoroughly when we were discussing Poland and many Poles participated in the discussion. I suppose the agreement is that there really are two Polands these days, conservative nation and liberal nation. It’s like America. (Don’t be surprised by Winter’s strongly anti-gay sentiments, he belongs to conservative nation.)
Poland is a free country. People disagree on many things there. If conservatives persecute gays, they are not doing it as official government policy. I know the president and the government cater to the conservative constituency, but any persecution is done by grass-roots activists.
It’s like the abortion issue in America. The prolife politicians do not generally persecute doctors or employees of clinics, some activist groups do that and they do it because of their own will and of their own choice and they don’t nearly always respect the law.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 2:19 pm
winter wrote:
“Its a simple 0 or 1 answer”
Perhaps for you it is. Simple minds come up with simple ideas.
winter wrote:
“Otherwise you are all about “me”.”
Ah, yes. The argument that gay people wanting children are “selfish”. I almost forgot about that one. Funny how straight people wanting the same are, amazingly enough, not perceived as “selfish”.
Talk about double standards..
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
And Kristian, if you have nothing more constructive to say then there’s always the option of keeping quiet. I know it’s hard to resist your natural impulse to ridicule people that are different from you but please try. That way you can keep up the veneer of civilized manners.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 2:36 pm
Ã…boy: but I’ve heard that “selfish” argument many times in Finland.
Isn’t the usual way of making that argument that the parents would get all the benefits of the adoption, whereas other kids, perhaps influenced by their parents, would then treat the kids worse now that they are adopted by gay parents than if they would have been adopted by straight parents.
Interestingly I’ve never heard that one about interracial adoptions. After all, one could in a similar vein say that it is selfish for a white parent to adopt a nonwhite kid to a white-dominated society where the kid will then hear racist remarks from white kids. After all, the parent enjoys all the nice bits of the adoption, feels the happiness for having a kid etc., while it’s the kid who has to hear racial slurs.
I guess this is because it is quite commonly agreed that racial slurs in schools are unacceptable, however common, whereas it’s still hard to imagine a school where the most common slurs against boys would not have to do with sexual orientation.
Anyway, if kids have to hear slurs because of whatever (after all, the reasons for calling other kids names are endless), the parents that adopt them suffer with them. They are not selfish in that sense, they too feel the pain if their kids have to hear that their family is not of the right sort.
Sometimes those who use the “selfish” argument also say, “I’m not intolerant or anti-gay but society is, schools more so than other places and the kids have to deal with it”. Ã…boy: what do you say to them? I guess I’d say that schools change and kids can one day use all kinds of slurs about their mates and the next day play with them as if nothing had happened.
After all, it’s an often recurring argument that for example, Britain or Sweden or Denmark or Holland etc. are very tolerant and kids in those countries wouldn’t suffer but Finland and America pride themselves of being more straight than other societies (Finns saying Swedes are gay, we aren’t, Americans saying French this and that, Americans are not like that, Americans don’t tolerate). Yet I think both Finland and America are changing very rapidly.
Probably the emergence of militant islamism has led many conservatives in both Finland and America to reconsider their anti-gay attitudes. After all, being anti-gay is the driving force of the islamist movement. Indignity toward witchhunts and executions of gays in ultra-islamist contexts is perhaps also the easiest way of garnering support against bin Laden and associates in the West.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
Ã…boy:
My oh my, aren’t we testy today
By chance, is this outburst the result of a lovers’ quarrel?
If so, I will counsel you. Please give me some information, and then we’ll start.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
It seems I seriously misunderstood winter’s “selfish” argument. He wasn’t saying that the kids will be treated badly by other kids at school (which is a very common “selfish” argument). The point was that it is selfish to raise kids without them having both a mother (a woman) and a father (a man). So winter thinks all single parents are selfish, too.
Yeah, that’s an old argument and we’ve debated that one for quite a while, too.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 3:34 pm
“An adopting gay/lesbian couple adopting cares about themselves and for their child in the exact same way as a heterosexual couple do.”
That was not the question Phil.
Do you care about the kids? If you did you would give them both their Mom and Dad until they are 18.
Comment by winter — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 4:47 pm
“The argument that gay people wanting children are “selfishâ€Â.”
again, not the question.
Its a question about what is best for the kids. My answer is a Mom and a Dad who raise the kid to 18 years of age.
What is your answer.
Comment by winter — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
“My answer is a Mom and a Dad who raise the kid to 18 years of age.”
Why? And why to 18 years specifically?
I think that the best for the kid is to have loving, caring parent(s) in their lives who take care of them and prepare them for their independent lives, supporting and encouraging them to find their full potential. I think that the organs between the legs of the parent(s) is irrelevant.
But, as I said earlier, we’ve already had this conversation here.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 5:01 pm
Its a simple 0 or 1 answer. If you truly care about the kids, the there are no LGBT rights. Otherwise you are all about “meâ€Â.
Who’s this winter who cares about the kids soooo much?
Oh yeah, the guy with five cars.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
Do you care about the kids? If you did you would give them both their Mom and Dad until they are 18.
“Finally, the guy who jerked off into a cup for $50 is here after 18 years!”
I couldn’t imagine growing up without my father or mother, and I guarantee that children of lesbian couples say the exact same thing, “I couldn’t imagine growing up without my two moms.” It would be ignorant of me to say that my parents are better than theirs.
Comment by Phil — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
Lets recap.
1) No one has stepped forward to even suggest the kid is the most important thing in this discussion. (Except me)
2) The PC folks here can’t get over the fact that the Mom and the Dad are the ones to raise a kid. To do so would mean, gasp, less rights for the “me” I want to be Madonna and put a black kid (Hay I went to Africa, and look what I got) in the back room.
Why is that? Whys are the kids we have not the most important things in life?
Comment by winter — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
Whys are the kids we have not the most important things in life?
What, do you mean that they are more important than five cars? Like, it wouldn’t be a good idea to fuck up the planet for them?
Nah, let’s pump up all the oil, turn it into CO2, raise the sea level a few metres and make the planet inhabitable. But, lard forbid if they should have two loving moms.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 9:52 pm
2) The PC folks here can’t get over the fact that the Mom and the Dad are the ones to raise a kid.
I assume, then, that Dad (or Mom) should stay home and raise the kids instead of being sent to freedomize Iraq, for instance, particularly as they might get freedomized themselves, resulting in one more single Mom (or Dad).
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 10:29 pm
Some people take it for granted that being raised by two moms (instead of an orphanage, for instance) is horribly traumatising for the kid. Methinks that the only folks getting traumatised by it are conservative rednecks like winter. So it’s a ME ME ME issue, after all.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 10:56 pm
“lard forbid if they should have two loving moms.”
Humm, again no one cares if the kid has a mom and a dad. Its just the Madonna give um to “me” generation.
O, but then I was never Politically Correct, or I would just rip those kids into Mom or Dad families.
Am I the only one here who thinks Kids go first in life, not the PC, its all about “ME” generation?
Comment by winter — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 11:32 pm
Am I the only one here who thinks Kids go first in life, not the PC, its all about “ME†generation?
Your five cars prove that you don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s kids, so stop pretending.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 12:21 am
I’ll say “that was so gay” just because
a) I can
b) it offends idiots
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 2:20 am
5 cars , 2 boats and a Finnish sauna. Plus I will have my kids work hard to pay my Social Security when I get old (Cash from the young to the old).
That why we have kids, to fund our fun right?
Comment by winter — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 5:15 am
That why we have kids, to fund our fun right?
You certainly seem to think so. Hey, at least we’ll be leaving behind all those SUVs for them to sleep in. Screw the environment, a breathable atmosphere is overrated anyway.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 9:55 am
@ 29,
What a strange view. Stubborn and bigoted.
Comment by Ã…boy — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 10:41 am
“Screw the environment”
heck we did that years ago, when we built coal powered power plants, and the good old enviro’s cut off new nukes.
But then again, I could wing my way in a private jet (Al Gore) all the way to Finland to tell you all to be green.
Naw, I will just fire up the boat and go Fishing, or dust off a gun and shoot Bambi. What do I do, what do I do.
Comment by winter — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 4:28 pm
“Naw, I will just fire up the boat and go Fishing, or dust off a gun and shoot Bambi.”
I bet you also have someone special there who you love to command to “squeal like a pig”. And is it your toothless and retarded brother in the rocking chair playing the harmonica there on the background?
Comment by Ã…boy — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 4:43 pm
And is it your toothless and retarded brother in the rocking chair playing the harmonica there on the background?
Hmm. I wonder if winter and his special someone are the subject of a certain computer game.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
To quote Ã…boy (#14):
“….if you have nothing more constructive to say then there’s always the option of keeping quiet. I know it’s hard to resist your natural impulse to ridicule people that are different from you but please try. That way you can keep up the veneer of civilized manners.”
To quote Ã…boy once again (#34):
“I bet you also have someone special there who you love to command to “squeal like a pigâ€Â. And is it your toothless and retarded brother in the rocking chair playing the harmonica there on the background?”
Ã…boy, don’t be cross. This is merely part of the counseling I offered you (#16).
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
You’ve got it a bit wrong, Kristian. Going to a therapist doesn’t make you qualified to counsel others.
Comment by Ã…boy — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
“toothless and retarded brother”
we do have lots of inbreeding in southern Maryland. The neighbor is shooting Black Powder (Muzzle loading) this weekend. Now thats a gun I need to get. Its duck and cover time in the neighborhood.
Comment by winter — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
Ã…boy—I never said I am qualified
winter—Just curious, are you on the Eastern Shore or the Baltimore side? I’ve sailed the full length of the Chesapeake Bay—about 200-miles. Very nice.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 8:33 pm
I sail around the southern tip, where the chesapeake and the potomac rivers meet. Lots of wind, and deep water.
Comment by winter — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 2:59 am
That’s a nice sailing location winter. About 20-years-ago, I helped someone sail a boat from the Sassafras River to the Potomac. He needed to keep it there, due to the, then, newly-implemented luxury tax in Maryland.
He kept his boat on the Potomac, in Virginia, for a year-or-two, until the unpopular tax was repealed. He saved about 15K. And yes, it was a big boat
Unfortunately, I wasn’t available to help him sail it back.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 3:24 am
Ah luxury tax … The Federal Gov did one as well in the 70’s. They completly killed of the boating Industry for 10 years. Lots of jobs lost.
But then Carter was the fool.
The docking fees on my Creek at about 75$ per month at the Marina. So we get a lot of Virginia boats. I will ask if taxes have anything to do with them being in Maryland.
Comment by winter — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 4:33 pm
#42
If I remember correctly, the marinas in Maryland lost lots of business until the tax was repealed. It was a very foolish move. I’m pretty sure the whole thing was driven by class envy.
And being from Finland, I know all about class envy :-/
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 11:15 pm
By the way, I know a successful expat Finn who has a house on the Chester River. The house has a private boat dock with one of these….
http://www.nauticat.com/
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
Great interview Phil! and thanks for posting the mp file here.
Comment by expat finn — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 5:01 am
“If you truly care about kids, there are no LGBT rights.”
-winter
Perhaps the leading opponent of gay marriage in America has been Pastor Ted Haggard. The excellent Harper’s magazine story “Soldiers of Christ” tells all about him and his church:
http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html
Why do I mention his name here? Well, he’s a married father of five and as anti-gay as they come. He has truly been the most influential evangelical leader in the US of A for the past few years.
You might guess that his own sexual orientation is a “0 or 1 answer” but it isn’t.
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP=ID=D8L5HCS00
No, it seems that America’s strongest spokesman for heterosexual family values, while living in a marriage between one man and one woman, fathering five children and giving spiritual counseling and political advice to George W. Bush, has been doing drugs and having sex with a gay prostitute on the side.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 1:53 pm
Oops, wrong link. There are many stories on Ted Haggard’s indiscretions out there but this link should be quite comprehensive:
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8L5HCS00
For those who read or have earlier read the Harper’s piece Soldiers of Christ, note 3 is especially excellent:
“The life of the gay man, in the evangelical imagination, seems to be an endless succession of orgasms, interrupted only by jocular episodes of male bonhomie.”
Now we know better, this picture of gay men is not only a product of imagination. Since the part of Ted Haggard’s life that was gay seems to have only included paid sex and drugs, this may be quite an accurate depiction of lived experience.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
Helsinkian,
I think it’s people like this Haggard fellow that are the main cause for the stereotype of gay men as self-hating, sex-oriented, double-life-leading deceivers. It’s plain to see that that kind of life is far removed from the average openly gay man who accepts himself and tries to lead an open, “normal” life (whatever that is) with a partner of the same gender.
Haggard might also be bisexual. Hate to say this but again and again it seems that closeted gays and bisexuals seem to be the main cause for negative views on homosexuality. Through them, being gay is seen as a somekind of “hobby”, something secret and dirty, done occasionally and only for sexual pleasure.
No wonder that the stereotypes live on. There’s a grain of truth to them. But not in the sense that one might think. Afterall, the only reason these closet cases are living like they are is that the society rejects them and disapproves them and so they feel that they need to hide an important part of themselves in order to be accepted. That of course leads to these kind of “scandals”-phenomenon.
Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
And again it was shown, that the guy who opposes gays the most usually has gay/bi tendencies himself.
No wonder though. A secure straight guy doesn’t need to hate gays.
Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 4:00 pm
There also seem to be rumors concerning Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate and Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/Issues/2006-11-02/news/norman.html
“Crist has repeatedly denied that he is gay and, with the election looming next week, has recently become more vocal in his stance against adoption by gay couples and in support of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage.”
It looks like Florida voters are going to elect this Crist guy to succeed Jeb Bush. Then they’ll get a copy of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is unrivalled in his anti-gay statements and also gone public denying the rumors that he himself is gay.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
The “unrivalled” word might have been hyperbole but Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) is perhaps best known for having told gays to live in another state.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 4:15 pm
So far it looks like Texas will re-elect Perry and Florida will go for Crist. Come Tuesday, we’ll see how big their margins of victory will be.
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
Hey Ã…boy, you’ll appreciate this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqJ_8lUsYs0
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 6:09 pm
“If you truly care about kids, there are no LGBT rights.â€Â
-winter
There are only kids rights.
Comment by winter — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 11:06 pm
Haggard’s wife has published a letter to the women of New Life Church:
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1326185&secid=1
“What I want you to know is that I love my husband, Ted Haggard, with all my heart. I am committed to him until death ‘do us part’. We started this journey together and with the Grace of God, we will finish together.
If I were standing before you today, I would not change one iota of what I have been teaching the women of our church. For those of you who have been concerned that my marriage was so perfect I could not possibly relate to the women who are facing great difficulties, know that this will never again be the case. My test has begun; watch me. I will try to prove myself faithful.”
-Gayle Haggard
Comment by Helsinkian — Mon, Nov 6th, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
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Comment by Anonymous — Sat, May 26th, 2007 @ 11:58 am