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The Bremen district court convicted St. Martini parish priest Olaf Latzel of sedition in the morning.
Presiding judge Ellen Best said the 53-year-old theologian had incited hatred against gays and intersex people in a so-called marriage seminar. His statements were sentimental and could be understood as a license to act against these people, he said in the sentence.
The court granted the prosecutor’s request and imposed a prison sentence of four months, converted into a fine of 90 daily rates of 90 euros, that is, 8,100 euros. The defense had asked for acquittal (AZ: 96 Ds 225 Js 26577/20).
In court, Latzel had stated that it was a misunderstanding. Although he rejects a biblically-based homosexual lifestyle, he has nothing against homosexuals. By the word “criminal” he meant “militant aggressors” who repeatedly attacked him and his community. But the court did not accept this argument.
Judge Best emphasized that she had rendered the verdict in the context of the current “climate of opinion.” He appealed to society: “We should all work to ensure that we are treated with more respect again.”
The lawyer wants to appeal
Latzel’s attorney announced that he would appeal the decision. If necessary, it will go to the Federal Constitutional Court.
At the “Biblical Driving School for Marriage” seminar in October 2019, Latzel described homosexuality as one of the “degenerative forms of society.” According to his worldview, adultery, the consumption of pornography or the flirtation with the secretary are “as worthy of death as lived homosexuality.”
Latzel also vilified the debate on gender roles: “All the gender rubbish is an attack on God’s order of creation, it is deeply diabolical and satanic,” she said in an audio recording of the event. Children would be indoctrinated in schools “This homolobby, this devilish thing, is getting stronger and stronger, more and more intrusive.” Everywhere “these criminals of this Christopher Street Day walked.”
Repressed Evangelical Regional Church
The Bremen Evangelical Church opened disciplinary proceedings against the pastor in May, but then let him rest. They wanted to wait for the district court’s verdict, he said.
When asked about the pastor’s hateful tirades, the president of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, told SPIEGEL: “Intolerance is against the gospel, pejorative and discriminatory attitudes must have no place in the church “.
In an online petition, the theologian receives the support of more than 20,000 supporters, and almost 14,000 signatories request his dismissal on another portal.
Latzel had been criticized several times in the past, including for defaming Buddhists, Catholics and Muslims in 2015. The arch-conservative cleric and his congregation made headlines across the country in 2008 when a pastor was denied the pulpit because they rejected strictly the ordination of women.
