Canada: Right to Sodomy Trumps Religious Liberty
Posted on July 6, 2015
by Blake Neff — 178 Comments
A court in Canada has upheld the denial
of accreditation to a Christian law school, holding the private school’s prohibition
of homosexual behavior is sufficiently discriminatory that its
degrees can be invalidated for that reason alone.
Trinity
Western University is a 4,000-student, evangelical Protestant
college in the Vancouver suburb of Langley. It has been seeking to open a law
school, but has struggled to obtain accreditation in several provinces.
This difficulty is not based on the school’s academics, but rather is
based on outside objections to the covenant the school makes all students
and professors sign. The covenant, among other things, forbids
all sex other than that within heterosexual marriage, a rule
opponents say discriminates against both sodomites and those who do not believe
in marriage.
Based on the rule, the Law Society of
Upper Canada, which governs bar admission in Ontario, refused to accredit the
school, meaning graduates would not be allowed to practice law in the province.
Trinity sued, leading to Thursday’s decision.
In its ruling,
the Ontario Superior Court found that the denial of accreditation did violate
Trinity’s freedom of religion, but that this violation was acceptable because
of the greater good of protecting equality. Trinity tried to argue that its
covenant was non-discriminatory, because it only governed behavior rather than
beliefs or innate traits, but the court said that explanation wouldn’t fly.
“Individuals who may not believe in
marriage, or LGBTQ persons, may attend (Trinity) but they must
first sign the community covenant and thus, in essence, disavow not only
their beliefs but, in the case of LGBTQ individuals, their very
identity,” the court said. “To assert that that result is not,
at its core, discriminatory is to turn a blind eye to the true impact and
effect of the community covenant.”
Additionally, the court said the
Law Society was within its rights to regulate student conduct agreements at the
private university, because of its long history of working to ensure the
“meritocracy” and “diversity” of the legal profession.
The court also held that individual
evangelical Christians could not claim to have had their freedom violated
by the ruling, because they could still attend law school elsewhere.
“There is no evidence before us that the
ability of an evangelical Christian to gain a legal education requires that
they study at a law school that only permits the presence of evangelical
Christian beliefs and only permits the attendance of those persons who commit
to those beliefs,” the ruling said.
According to
the CBC, Trinity spokesman Guy Saffold warned the decision
“points a knife at the freedom of faith communities across Canada to hold
and practice their beliefs.”
The ruling is the most recent defeat of
many for religious Canadian schools opposed to homosexuality.
For example, several provinces, including Alberta last March, have passed
laws making it mandatory for all religious schools to
establish official homosexual-straight alliance clubs if a student requests
one.
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