In the Swedish Riksdag, there seems to be a majority for the Social Democrats' bill for churches that receive grants. Churches has sharply criticised the proposal, because they fear increased government control.
It is under the leadership of Minister of Culture Jeanette Gustafsdotter (Social Democrats) that the government has put forward a proposal to introduce democratic conditions for faith communities that want to receive state grants. This means that a church needs to meet certain standards for receiving state grants. For example, “presenting threats of exclusion due to choice of life-partner” or referring to conversion therapy is not allowed. These statements can be enough for religious communities to be denied government grants.
Although Jeanette Gustafsdotter claims in the debate section in Dagen that this bill will only attack more extreme forms of religious groups, there is great concern among church representatives for what lies ahead. Critics of the bill thus fear that if one individual does something problematic, the grant for an entire congregation could be withdrawn. Others warn that churches allow themselves to be controlled by the state when financial incentives are introduced to behave in a certain way.
Support
Nevertheless, there seems to be enough support in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, to pass the bill. This reports the online newspaper Altinget after it conducted a survey among Riksdag parties.
In the survey that Altinget has done, there are critical voices. The Christian Democrats, for example, call on the government to take a step back as they think that the measures the state wants to take against the communities are disproportionate.
Several other parties only have certain objections regarding the democratic conditions and will probably try to make some adjustments along the way. For example, the Moderate Party thinks that the proposal is too limited. “We will probably vote for the proposals, but at the same time demand that measures be taken to ensure that public funds are not at all allocated to activities that risk promoting or supporting radicalisation, oppression of honour, violent extremism as well as hatred and intolerance towards LGBTQ people”. This reports the Christian Swedish daily Dagen.
