Unrepentant Swedish pastor calls gay life "abnormal"
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 23:27

A Swedish evangelical pastor who called homosexuality "a cancerous tumour" to blame for AIDS stood by his sermon on Wednesday in the Supreme Court and challenged prosecutors to send him to prison.

Ake Green has become a cause celebre for Christian groups in Sweden and abroad who defend his right to freedom of speech and faith. Prosecutors appealed to Sweden's highest court after a lower court upheld his right to preach his views even if many Swedes found them offensive, and overturned a one-month jail term for inciting hatred on grounds of sexual orientation.

Gay activists, one of whom stood outside the court with a banner saying "I'm no cancer", want him jailed and the prosecutor is pushing for a sentence of six months or more.

The case is provoking debate in a highly secular country that prides itself on pioneering sexual equality.

"I don't take back what I said," Green told reporters before the appeal, which was attended by a small group of supporters including members of the Christian biker gang "Holy Riders".

"I wanted to spark a debate and I've done that. My message is that men should live by the laws of creation which means the normal family set-up with a woman, a man and children. I think homosexuality and that lifestyle is abnormal and I want to be free to say that," said the 63-year-old evangelical pastor.

In the hearing, which could last for weeks, and was aired live on national television without images, Green defended the 2003 sermon at his church on the island of Oland, though he said he had called "the homosexual lifestyle" a cancer rather than homosexual people themselves.

The white-haired, bespectacled preacher told prosecutor Stefan Johansson his reading of the Bible and "other sources like the National Encyclopedia" confirmed his view "that a promiscuous lifestyle heightens the risk of AIDS".

The head of gay rights group RFSL, Soren Andersson, told Reuters that if Green went free, "Sweden should re-think its laws against hatred". He said "free churches" like Green's target gays "because we threaten their beliefs".

Green told reporters that if convicted, he would rather be jailed than do community service: "I still think we should be able to voice our convictions without ending up in jail and if that happens I will be showing how ridiculous things have got."

Some papers argue that prison would just make him a martyr -- a status he already has for an anti-homosexual Kansas church which runs the internet campaign "God Hates Sweden".

The case comes amid worldwide debate about gay clergy and gay marriages. Sweden's Lutheran church, to which 80 percent of Swedes nominally belong but few attend, faces a revolt by more than 700 of its 5,000 priests over a decision to bless gay couples.