The ruling overturned a Bremen District Court decision from 2020, which said the minister had committed hate speech and sentenced him to three months in prison, commuted to a fine of €8,100 (about $8,680). Latzel’s lawyer said his client is “happy and relieved” about the acquittal. The judge reasoned that while the condemnation of homosexuality seemed to him “strange statements,” Latzel was nonetheless not guilty of hate speech. While Latzel condemned homosexual practices as well as theories of gender fluidity, he was found to not incite hatred against individuals. On May 20, 2022, Judge Hendrik Göhner said that “these statements are more than alienating from a social point of view-especially from one holding such a high office.” However, the theological distinction between human beings and lived practice, Göhner said, can be hard to discern. This month, however, a German court decided that the Bremen minister is not guilty of inciting hatred against LGBT people.
But in both, observers saw a long-expected clash, as increasing concerns for the dignity and rights of LGBT people came into conflict with deep commitments to free speech and religious liberty. Latzel’s case has attracted less international attention than a similar one in Finland, where a politician was prosecuted for tweeting out Bible verses and a Lutheran bishop for publishing a pamphlet on biblical gender roles. The local government launched an investigation and ultimately prosecuted Latzel for hate speech. The regional body of the church, which has a quasi-official status in Germany, initiated disciplinary proceedings. The address was posted on YouTube, where the words of the United Protestant Church minister raised a furor. “All this gender s-,” he said, “is an attack against God’s order of creation. In October 2019, in a marriage seminar for about 30 couples, Latzel commented on what he called the “homolobby.” He attacked homosexuality, calling it “degenerative,” and said, “These criminals are running around everywhere” during the Berlin Pride Parade.
Martini congregation in the northern German city of Bremen, Olaf Latzel, 54, cut a stark figure in his black gown and two white preaching tabs.īut it wasn’t his presence that caused a stir in Germany it was what he had been preaching from that pulpit. Standing tall in the raised pulpit of the St.