(LifeSiteNews) — A Swiss man will be jailed after refusing to pay a fine for posting on social media that it is “a mental illness” to deny that there are only biological men and women.
Emanuel Brünisholz, who repairs wind instruments for a living, must now spend 10 days in prison after refusing to pay a fine amounting to about $1,000 for allegedly violating an anti-discrimination law.
The offending comment read, “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”
Brünisholz’s wrote this in response to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner. Angry pro-LGBT Swiss citizens filed complaints with police, claiming his statement amounted to “public incitement to hatred” under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code, Reduxx reported.
The 1995 law targets the dissemination of ideas that “degrade human dignity” based on race, ethnicity, or religion. In 2020, it was interpreted to also encompass “sexual identities.”
Burgdorf Police then questioned Brünisholz on August 15, 2023, as part of a formal investigation into charges of “discrimination and hate speech.” During the questioning, Regional Police asked, “What did you mean by this comment?”
Brünisholz replied, “Well, that those who think there’s not just man and woman, I want to tell them that there’s only man and woman.” He was also asked what he thought of the “LGBTQI community,” who he called an “extremist bunch.”
The Bernese judiciary decided that his Facebook comment “publicly belittled the group of LGBT(Q)I people based on their sexual orientation and in a way that violates human dignity,” and as such was a violation of the law.
He was fined 500 Swiss francs (about $580 USD), which if unpaid would translate to 10 days of imprisonment. After he objected to the order, his case was sent to a regional court for review, but the court affirmed the guilty verdict and fined Brünisholz an additional 600 Swiss francs.
Brünisholz opted to go to jail instead of paying the fine, and announced his punishment on September 19, writing, “It’s happening. On December 2, I’m going to prison for 10 days!”
Social media users denounced the ruling as both an infringement of free speech and a “stupid” denial of basic biology, and several blasted the prosecution as “Orwellian.”
One remarked, “1984 is here,” noting that Brünisholz is “going to prison for stating a fact.”
Laura Wadsworth commented, “Male and female skeletons ARE different. We can find a 1,000-year-old skeleton and know whether it was male or female. We are living through the stupidest age in the history of the world.”
However, not everyone opposed the decision. A German-speaker named Christ told the repairman on X, “You got off pretty cheap for your disgusting remarks.”
Gender dysphoria has been widely recognized as a mental disorder until recently, further compounding the absurdity of the judicial decision against Brünisholz.
