JD Vance Breaks Another Taboo: Europe’s Christians Are Being Persecuted

Vice President JD Vance confronted the European elites with their hypocrisies at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. He detailed the democratic failings of Europe’s leaders; highlighted their fear of dissident voters who stubbornly insist on voting for populist parties; noted the growing migration crisis across the continent. But perhaps most importantly, he addressed an issue that few Western leaders are willing to discuss out loud: the growing censorship and prosecution of Europe’s Christians.

Vance’s speech has become something of a Rorschach test. For some, it was a deplorable and deliberately disruptive salvo aimed at the heart of the post-war international order. For others, it was a desperately needed and long overdue exercise in difficult truth-telling. The speech was effective because Vance brought in specific details. He cited the case of Adam Smith-Connor—the man arrested after praying for his own aborted child near an abortion clinic in the UK, the first conviction for a thought-crime in modern Britain—and the draconian “exclusion zones” in Scotland, in which even thinking pro-life thoughts is illegal.

Those outraged by Vance’s speech dismissed these examples, and this is no surprise—they have been doing so for decades. The same commentators who are reduced to wild-eyed babbling over the Hungarian government declining to subsidize institutions opposed to its values are content to dismiss the arrests and prosecutions of Christians as a bug (if not a feature) of the “norms” they seek to defend. But Vance could have cited dozens of additional cases from the past few years.

Anne Applebaum, for example, is one of the most prominent public prophets warning about the “twilight of democracy” in Europe, but has yet to mention the years-long persecution of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen for merely quoting the Bible—and Räsänen isn’t just a veteran like Smith-Connor. She was Finland’s Minister of the Interior for 2011 to 2015. One would think that the criminal prosecution of a political leader for citing Scripture in public media interviews would be precisely the sort of thing Applebaum and her comrades are so concerned about. You would be wrong. 

But there is little doubt that if Räsänen was defending LGBT ideology in Hungary or Poland, the elites would rush to the barricades and shriek about the coming darkness.

Others are thrilled that Vance was willing to speak out. As Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer with Alliance Defending Freedom International, told me:

Vice President Vance’s speech was a much-needed reflection of the dire state of fundamental freedoms in Europe. Adam Smith-Connor was prosecuted and convicted on the basis of his silent thoughts—it doesn’t get much worse than that in a society that claims to be free. When individuals can be interrogated, arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for silent prayer, we must conclude that the state of fundamental freedoms is in crisis.

Smith-Connor’s arrest and conviction for thought crime is egregious, but his case is by no means an exception—as Vance pointed out in his speech. It isn’t just Christians, but any dissident who dares to disagree publicly with LGBT ideology, abortion, or other establishment sacred cows. A few additional examples:

• Last week, a 74-year-old Scottish woman named Rose Docherty was arrested for standing silently in a “buffer zone” near an abortion clinic holding a sign reading: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, if you want.” The police told her they suspected she was holding an illegal “silent vigil.”
• In 2022, Vassilis Tsiartas, widely considered to be one of the greatest Greek soccer stars of all time, was convicted of “transphobic” social media posts and given a 10-month suspended prison sentence and 5,000 euro fine for “violence or hatred for reasons of gender identity.”
• In 2023, French journalist Dora Moutot was investigated for “misgendering” a trans-identifying politician and further allegations of “insult” and “incitement.” They were ultimately dismissed, but as Moutot observed, street-level violence is also used to silence freedom of speech.
• Harry Miller, a UK dockworker, was investigated by the police for retweeting a limerick mocking transgenderism. The experience turned him into a free speech activist.
• In 2022, Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as “Posie Parker,” was told by police that she could be arrested if she didn’t attend a “voluntary” police interview after a rally opposing gender ideology because she’d been accused of a “hate crime.” 
• In 2023, the Norwegian filmmaker and actress Tonje Gjevjon was criminally investigated for stating that men cannot be lesbians; her compatriot, the feminist Christina Ellingsen, was investigated for saying that men cannot become women. (Gjevjon is a lesbian.) 
• And in perhaps the most disgusting example of them all, a UK veteran was arrested in 2022 for an anti-gender ideology post by police who showed up at his house and told him: “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested.” The officers even handcuffed him.

The list goes on; groups like ADF International are kept very busy defending the rights of the censored and the suppressed. Many of these stories are easily sensational enough to warrant a column or two from the commentators currently warning us that Vance’s speech is “dangerous.” An ex-soldier who fought for his country put in handcuffs because he doesn’t think men can become women? A Greek soccer star convicted for social media posts condemning an ideology that gained cultural dominance less than a decade ago? A prominent cabinet minister quoting from the Book that gave birth to our civilization? Crickets. Where were the defenders of the liberal order then? 

Vance’s speech was potent precisely because it was true—but this is the first time someone with hard power said it out loud in front of the very leaders responsible for these speech regimes.