When a homosexual couple go to a Christian baker for a wedding cake in the almost certain knowledge they will not get it, they are not so much interested in the cake as destroying the baker.
Similarly, if a homosexual applied to a small evangelical Christian college – the only one in Canada – to become a lawyer, knowing full-well he will be unable to attend because he is unwilling to sign a document agreeing to abstain from sex outside of heterosexual marriage, he is out to destroy the college not obtain a law degree. Aspiring homosexual lawyers won’t have to go through this inconvenience because Canada’s courts have done it for them.
The Supreme Court of Canada has decided not to accredit Trinity’s graduates, effectively preventing the law school from continuing to function.
As far as I know, no unmarried heterosexual couples are particularly upset about Trinity’s covenant, even though they are equally discriminated against.
Needless to say, no mainline protestant denominations have offered any support for Trinity Western. Quite the opposite: here is an article by Michael Coren, ex-evangelical, ex-Catholic, some would say ex-Christian and now an Anglican priest in training, supporting the decision.
For a saner view, go here:
The Supreme Court of Canada struck a brave blow on Friday for LGBTQ students who would be compelled to attend a proposed law school at Trinity Western University — a small, private, evangelical Christian school in Langley, B.C., whose “community covenant” prohibits sexual relations except among married men and women.
That is to say, they struck a blow for nobody.
“Students who do not agree with the religious practices do not need to attend,” former chief justice Beverley McLachlin wrote. “But if they want to attend, for whatever reason, and agree to the practices required of students, it is difficult to speak of compulsion.”
McLachlin was nevertheless part of the 7-2 majority upholding the British Columbia and Ontario law societies’ decision not to accredit Trinity’s graduates. The societies, as delegated wielders of government power, argued doing so would effectively grant the government’s imprimatur to the covenant and erect “inequitable barriers on entry to the profession”: there would be 60 more law school places available, and some would effectively be unavailable to LGBTQ students thanks to the covenant.
The court decided that was a reasonable application of the law societies’ mandates to oversee the legal profession.
And in so ruling they helped … nobody. Again. Indeed, they might just have killed Trinity Law before it ever admits a student — though Earl Phillips, head of the program, says he suspects there are “many options” available other than the obvious ones: abandoning either the covenant or the law school.
The implications of the ruling are potentially massive. “Canada has a tradition dating back at least four centuries of religious schools which are established to allow people to study at institutions that reflect their faith and their practices,” McLachlin wrote in her concurrence. Many have always admitted students of other faiths (or none), on the condition they respect institutional mores. Today many such institutions receive public money to teach elementary and secondary students. Yet the highest court in the land has decided it’s fine for a government actor to discriminate against grown men and women who want to assemble freely in an entirely private religious institution to learn the law.
It did so in a decision that’s sloppily argued and full of contradictions. Notably, it credits the law societies’ quest for a diverse legal profession without ever considering that an evangelical Christian law school would obviously contribute to that goal. And it veers wildly off the beaten path in an effort to downplay the obvious impingement on the Trinity Western community’s religious freedoms.
