Damning Trinity Western: Blackmail and Blackball

"The proper place to draw the line in cases like the one at bar is generally between belief and conduct."
"The freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them."
2001 Supreme Court of Canada judgement


"Based on the current situation, I have decided to revoke my approval of the proposed law school at Trinity Western University. This means the university cannot enroll any students in its proposed program."
"The current uncertainty over the status of the regulatory body approval means prospective graduates may not be able to be called to the bar, or practise law, in British Columbia. This is a significant change to the context in which I made my original decision."
"Once the legal issues are resolved, TWU will have the option to renew its request for consent.‎"
Amrik Virk, Advanced Education Minister, Victoria, B.C.

"People have the right to attend a private religious university that imposes a religiously based code of conduct. That is the case even if the effect of that code is to exclude others or offend others who will not or cannot comply with the code of conduct."
"Learning in an environment with people who promise to comply with the code is a religious practise and an expression of religious faith. There is nothing illegal or even rogue about that."
"The [Bar Society] has characterized TWU's community Covenant as 'unlawful discrimination'. It is not unlawful. It may be offensive to many but it is not unlawful."
"Like churches and other private institutions [TWU] does not have to comply with the equality provisions of the Charter. It has not been found to be in breach of any human rights legislation that applies to it. ... The Charter is not a blueprint for moral conformity. Its purpose is to protect the citizen from the power of the state, not to enforce compliance by citizens of private institutions with the moral judgements of the state."
Justice Jamie Campbell, Nova Scotia Supreme Court

Prospective law students will be welcome to study at Trinity Western University as long as they sign onto the code of conduct that they will remain celibate during the study time at the university, in recognition of the university's Christian values and mores. It doesn't ban the presence of gays, nor of anyone else, merely asks that they respect the code of conduct inherent in the university's religious heritage standards. Doing so ensures that they have access, should they so desire, to the university's opportunities to achieve a law degree.

As a private Christian university located in British Columbia, it had planned to inaugurate its law faculty in September of 2016. Attaching to its requirements for academic credits, the stipulation that "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman" be prohibited behaviour on the part of those planning to study at the university. And that codification of intimate conduct has brought down the wrath of liberals and the gay community in condemning the university as objectionably discriminatory.

Its many critics claim the condition adhering to the acceptability of academic attendance represents a violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that it is inherently homophobic. A large proportion of B.C. lawyers expressed opposition to the school and its now-notorious code of conduct requirement. And other provincial bodies have fallen suit. A code that requires prospective students to be prepared to pledge not to have sex while students there has been generally rejected as socially offensive.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled this doesn't constitute discrimination.

The university's viral opponents paint it as prejudicial to the gay community, and that this being so, it is incapable of teaching proficiency in the law, since its religious charter differs from rights guaranteed in the Charter. The argument has been refuted by the courts. This argument neatly sidesteps the reality that some of the most highly respected legal faculties in our more religion-based neighbour's schools such as Notre Dame, Boston College and Brigham Young in the U.S., employ quite similar codes of conduct, and churn out excellent law degrees.

The Nova Scotia Barristers' Society had announced in April its intention to refuse recognizing the law degrees granted from Trinity Western. The Federation of Canadian Law Societies has approved TWU Law, but opposition from the B.C. and Ontario law societies, along with that of Nova Scotia's and the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education which revoked approval, makes it an iffy proposition whether the law school will manage to get off the ground at all.

Yet in the face of this broad opposition Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Jamie S. Campbell overturned the NSBS decision: "The NSBS has no authority whatsoever to dictate directly what a university does or does not do. It could not pass a regulation requiring TWU to change its community covenant any more than it could pass a regulation [dictating] which professors should be granted tenure at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, what fees should be charged at the University of Toronto, or the admissions policies of McGill."

The hysteria of the legal community reacting to the evangelical Christian university's conduct code overlooks the irrelevancy of a covenant driven by religious belief that imposes no particular hardship or onerous discriminatory conduct or penalty other than refusing instruction in the law, to be imposed upon an identifiable group; it represents an overall directive of conduct expected from all its students in respecting Christian values.

This, over and above the intention to provide an opportunity to study and achieve a respected academic qualification to practise Canadian law. This absurd tempest in a cathedral does an injustice to the sacrosanct values of a religious community, in favour of reacting in politically correct outrage to favour a minority group, representing only one part of potential student body at the university. Anyone is free to attend that particular university or to shun it, as they prefer.