Tag Archives: Trinity Western University

News

Good news: B.C. Supreme Court rules in favor of Trinity Western University

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Map of Canadian provinces
Map of Canadian provinces

Wow, I didn’t expect this from the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Here’s the press release from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms:

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) today responded to the B.C. court ruling in Trinity Western University v. Law Society of British Columbia. 

The JCCF intervened in this court action, in support of freedom of association, as protected by Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The B.C. Supreme Court today ruled against the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) refusing to recognize the law program of Trinity Western University (TWU), a private Evangelical Christian university in Langley, B.C.

The Federation of Law Societies of Canada has approved the law program of TWU as meeting academic and professional standards.  The LSUC admits there is nothing wrong with TWU’s law program, but claim that TWU’s Community Covenant discriminates against the LGBTQ+ community.  The Community Covenant prohibits numerous legal activities such as vulgar or obscene language, drunkenness, viewing pornography, gossip, and sexual activity outside of the marriage of one man and one woman.

The JCCF argued for the Charter section 2(d) right to freedom of association, including the right of every charity, ethnic and cultural association, sports club, temple, church, and political group to establish its own rules and membership requirements.

“This Court’s ruling in favour of procedural fairness and due process is a victory for the rule of law in Canada.  The Court also held that the LSBC had an obligation to properly consider and balance the Charter rights in issue, but failed to do so,” stated John Carpay, lawyer and President of JCCF.

This case is going to go to the Supreme Court, and since Stephen Harper was Prime Minister for some time, there is a chance they could win their case. Trudeau has not had a chance to pack the Supreme Court with liberal stooges yet. I’m not optimistic, but there’s a chance. Canada’s Supreme Court is notorious for blatant left-wing judicial activism.

The Rebel has a video clip about the decision, featuring John Carpay:

If this is something you care about, you can donate using the link on The Rebel’s post about the decision.

News

In Canada, Trinity Western University’s law school loses accreditation

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Canada election 2011: Consersvatives in Blue, Socialists in Red, Communists in Orange
2011 election: Conservatives in Blue, Socialists in Red, Communists in Orange

Canada legalized gay marriage in 2005, and they are about 10 years ahead of us in destroying religious liberty. Want to know what comes after a country legalizes same-sex marriage? Then look to Canada. Specifically, look to the financial hub of Canada, the very liberal province of Ontario.

The Daily Caller reports on it.

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 gays and those who do not believe in marriage.

The actual regulation says nothing about gay anything. It is just as much opposed to heterosexual extra-marital sex as it is to homosexual extra-marital sex. But somehow, in Canada, if you believe what the Bible teaches about sex, then you can’t practice law. Because rainbow flag, tolerance and diversity.

More:

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.

[…]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.

Got that? So gay people who want a wedding cake, wedding flowers, wedding venue, wedding photography, etc. ARE having their rights violated even though they can go elsewhere. But Christian students who want to attend Trinity ARE NOT having their rights violated when they have to go elsewhere. It’s “equal”, in the eyes of the secular left.

Let’s take a look at two 5-minute clips of the Ontario decision from two Canadian journalists.

Ezra Levant (who is Jewish):

Brian Lilley (who is Catholic):

In Canada, gay rights trump religious liberty rights.

But Canada is a different country, would the Democrats really be able to go after Christian schools the same way here?

This article from Campus Reform says yes.

Excerpt:

The recent Supreme Court opinion threatens the operations of religious colleges, according to a constitutional lawyer.

“If same-sex marriage is really the law of the land, if it’s really constitutionally required, isn’t there a risk that accrediting bodies are going to start pressuring religious colleges to recognize same-sex marriages for all purposes on their campuses as a condition of accreditation?” constitutional lawyer Gene Schaerr rhetorically asked Tuesday in his analysis of Obergefell v Hodges.

By the way, I don’t need to mention that many Christians in Canada voted for the bigger government over the last two decades, and that’s conservative Christianity is almost dead there. Why would “Christians” vote to expand for bigger secular government? Because Christians in Canada thought that it was the government’s job to take care of poverty and to give everyone “free health care”. When you ask a secular government to control more and more of our lives, this is what you get. Let me be clear: a “Christian” who favors bigger government favors the end of Christianity. Period. That clear enough for you?

News

British Columbia law society votes against accrediting evangelical law school

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Map of Canada
Map of Canada

Global News reports.

Excerpt:

The Law Society of British Columbia has voted against accrediting a proposed law school at Trinity Western University.

In a binding decision, 74 per cent of lawyers voted against TWU’s program, with 8,039 ballots cast in total – more than 60 per cent of all lawyers eligible to vote.

The society says the decision means that “the proposed law school at Trinity Western University is not an approved faculty of law for the purpose of the Law Society’s admission program.”

The vote was conducted by mail and required a two-thirds majority, with a turnout more than 33.3 per cent.

CBC has the reaction from Trinity:

The president of Trinity Western University says he is uncertain if the new law school will open as scheduled in 2016 following the recent vote by the B.C. Law Society members to reject the faith-based institution.

TWU president Bob Kuhn expressed his frustration with the recent vote as he left a ratification meeting at the law society on Friday morning.

“They had to choose between the principles upon which they made the initial decision and the popularity of that decision among lawyers in the province,” says Kuhn.

“We’re disappointed of course they chose the latter. But that’s the reality of people in an elected position.”

British Columbia is now the third province, after Ontario and Nova Scotia, to officially reject the university’s law school.

Kuhn says it’s not clear whether the Christian university will move ahead with its 2016 opening date, and the school will decide in the coming weeks whether to file a judicial review.

The board members of the B.C. Law Society voted 25 to one with four abstentions to ratify the results of a referendum announced yesterday rejecting the accreditation of a Trinity Western University’s law school.

More than 8,000 of the society’s 13,530 members voted earlier this month in a special referendum to overturn the board’s decision earlier this year to accredit the faith-based law school.

Critics oppose the new law school’s accreditation because Trinity Western students must sign a Christian covenant that states sexual relations are to be confined within the bounds of a marriage between a man and a woman.

Trinity Western Law School has a rule that says that students are expect not to engage in extramarital sex – regardless of sexual orientation, which is in keeping with what the Bible teaches. And the law society has decided that this teaching should disqualify a person from practicing law. What is objectionable about this rule? Well, the people who voted against it would be condemned by it. And so they seek to remove the influence of anyone who believes in that rule. Times change, but human nature doesn’t change. If you don’t want God, you try to silence anyone who reminds you of that fact. It’s also a reminded that secularism isn’t based in anything that science tells us or history tells us or any kind of evidence. It’s about morality. It’s about denying the authority of the moral law. That’s why people reject God, and intimidate those who don’t reject God.

I think this is a good reminder to Christian parents in the United States about why it is important to have some sort of vision for your children. If we don’t get advanced degrees, then we leave these decisions to the secular bigots. We are either going to take having an influence seriously or we are going to lose the power to have an influence. Do you have a plan to counter this?