The president of a Christian university in British Columbia seeking to open a law school says a debate in Ontario over its accreditation comes down to freedom of religion.
Trinity Western University, which plans to open a law school in the fall of 2016, requires students to abide by a so-called community covenant forbidding intimacy outside heterosexual marriage.
Ontario’s law society is set to vote today on whether Trinity Western law graduates should be allowed to practise in Ontario.
University president Bob Kuhn told the Law Society of Upper Canada today that Trinity Western “asks only that its religious beliefs be tolerated as part of a pluralistic society that encourages diversity.”
He says if the law society votes against the university today, it will have endorsed institutional bullying, validated “vitriolic” attacks against the school and signalled that Canadians with religious views are not welcome in the public marketplace.
Kuhn says the issue is one of discrimination — against future Trinity Western graduates who may be barred from practising in Ontario because of their religious beliefs.
The law school has received preliminary approval from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and earlier this month the Law Society of B.C.’s benchers, who act as the organization’s board of governors, voted to allow the school to proceed.
The controversy over Trinity Western’s proposed law school fuelled a sensitive and emotional debate in B.C. about how to balance the beliefs of a private Christian institution with the rights of gays and lesbians.
Students can face discipline for violating the covenant, either on or off campus, according to the school’s student handbook.
Trinity Western says it will be the first Christian university in Canada to open a law school. It plans to enrol 60 students in the first year of the program.
Kuhn says prospective students aren’t asked about their sexual orientation during the application process, though indeed there are gay and lesbian students at the school. Everyone is welcome, he says, as long as they agree to abide by the community covenant.
“It’s not a university of bigotry or a university of intolerance,” he said. “It’s a university the students leave saying, ‘I love this place.'”
