EVERYTHING I LOVE IS FINNISH.
Why do i live in Canada?
Same.
That’s why I went on an exchange there.
Love love love love it there.
The Islander by Nightwish
Listening to this song reminds me of this past summer when I went back to Finland for 3 months. I was at the summer cottage with my host parents and I was drawing the shore line. I could hear some sort of bell off in the distance, and it just made me feel like I was home.
The Nordic countries are some of the most LGBT-positive in the world. Still, it is rare to come across a story as outstanding as this one. A whopping 30,000 people have reportedly left the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran and Orthodox Churches over anti-gay comments that were made earlier this month.
Thirty thousand. That’s like three hundred times the number of people that are in that Westboro Baptist Cult…er, Church. That’s a whole lot of homo-positivity, Finland.
“The number leaving increased sharply on 12 October following the broadcast of a debate programme focused on gay rights on Network 2 of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle),” reports the Helsinki Times. “By Monday 18 October, more than 24,000 people had left Finland’s Evangelical-Lutheran and Orthodox Churches.”
In fact, more than 5,000 people are reported to have left the Church on Monday the 18th alone, the result of some strikingly anti-gay sentiments made by the chairwoman of Finland’s Christian Democrats Party, Päivi Räsänen, the Lutheran Vicar, Matti Repo, and a Member of Parliament with the True Finns anti-immigration party, Pentti Oinonen. These debaters all made bible-based arguments against homosexuals that apparently offended many Finns.
Though it is not rare for Finns to leave the church — a law was passed in 2003 that gave citizens the right to Freedom of Religion — it is normally no more than eight hundred people who withdraw their membership each week.
For what it is worth, there were some high-ranking and influential people speaking out in the above-mentioned debate in favor of LGBT people. These include Leena Huovinen, a Christian pastor who blesses same-sex couples, openly-gay MP Oras Tynkkynen of the Finnish Green League Party, a representative from the LGBT-rights group SETA, and the current Mr. Gay Finland, Lenneth Liukkonen. They all spoke in favor of gender-neutral marriage laws.
Gays and lesbians currently hold some rights in Finland, including same-sex registered partnerships and anti-discrimination laws. Could same-sex adoption and gay marriage be far behind?
Hell yes Finland. You stay classy. I promise I’m coming back soon :D
This is Chisu, a Finnish singer. I absolutely love her voice in the song Sama Nainen. If you want to hear it, you can find it on youtube.
Mid-Summer
seems to always hurt me haha. Last year, I slipped on a stair and buggered my ankle. To this day, it still goes *click click*
Then yesterday, as I went to step into the boat, there was a rotten board on the dock and my foot went through. I fell backwards and my leg was all the way down, to my knee. So now, I have two HUGE purple bruises on both sides of my left leg.
HOW WONDERFUL
On a side note: I only took like…6 pictures. Weird, normally I am the camera happy Canadian.
