Law Society of B.C. to Appeal Trinity Western Decision to Supreme Court of Canada

Last week court ruled decision not to recognize Trinity law school grads "unreasonable"

The Canadian Press

    The B.C. Law Society intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future 
    lawyers from Trinity Western University.

The Law Society of British Columbia intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future lawyers from a Christian law school.

Trinity Western University Law School wins legal battle in B.C. court

The B.C. Appeal Court ruled last week the society's decision not to recognize graduates from Trinity Western University's proposed law school is "unreasonable."

Now, the law society is seeking leave to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the decision is a matter of national significance.

The dispute stems from the university's controversial community covenant that bans sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, which the law society has argued discriminates against LGBTQ people. 

Part of the argument presented in last week's hearing is that there are no LGBTQ students at Trinity Western. Few if any LGBTQ people who attend university would choose to attend an overtly Christian campus. So the covenant doesn't affect any LGBTQ students, because there aren't any.

The worrisome thing here is that if the Supreme Court rules against Trinity, it will mean the end of the covenant and will soon mean the end of any Christian Universities in Canada. There simply won't be any significant way to distinguish a Christian college from a secular college.

It's a pity the Law Society is so fixed on the rights of students who don't exist while working so valiantly against the rights of thousands of Christian students who actually do exist. It is so obviously anti-Christian bigotry. Let's hope and pray that the Supreme Court will see through this.

The Legal Fight Over TWU’s Law School Grads Continues on East Coast

The latest skirmish in the war on Christianity

Shane Woodford

Trinity Western University is in court in Nova Scotia Wednesday morning, fighting to allow graduates of its controversial school of law to work in the province.

The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is arguing the school’s covenant, forbidding sex outside the traditional marriage of a man and a woman, is discriminatory.

The Society has already lost a court battle and is appealing a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge’s ruling, that it exceeded its authority in banning TWU grads from working in the province.

In court, the Barristers Society says the covenant means LGBTQ students aren’t being given equal opportunities at the university.

Lost in this absurdity is that fact that there are almost certainly no LGBTQ students at Trinity, nor are there ever likely to be any. Trinity is a Christian school and very few LGBTQs have any desire to be around Christians.

Then there is the fact that there are dozens of other places to get a law degree, one does not need to attend Trinity Western.

The Law Societies are clearly biased toward LGBTQs and against Christians, some of which we have brought on ourselves with un-Christ-like behaviour, and some is simply bigotry.

Wednesday is the first of three days of court proceedings.

Here in B.C., the Law Society is appealing a similar ruling.

It too doesn’t want to give TWU law school grads accreditation, due to the community covenant.

A date for that appeal has not been set yet.

Christians, please be praying for the courts to see the bigotry and absurdity of the Law Society's position.

War on Christians Lands a Blow for the Good Guys

Law Society's discriminatory decision against Trinity Western law school overturned by B.C. Supreme Court

CBC News 

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has overturned the Law Society referendum
denying accreditation to graduates from Trinity Western University. (CBC)

The university filed suit following the results of the referendum October 2014 in which Law Society members voted that graduates from TWU's proposed law school would not be recognised.

That referendum had overturned a decision by the Law Society board (known as the Benchers) in April 2014 to approve accreditation for TWU graduates.

Chief Justice Hinkson ordered the October 2014 decision quashed, and the original Benchers' decision allowing accreditation to stand.

In his judgement released Thursday, Hinkson said the Benchers had acted improperly when they allowed the LSBC members to hold the later referendum, essentially delegating the decision to the members.

Hinkson added that, even if his decision on the delegation is found to be wrong, it remains the case that the referendum "was made without proper consideration and balancing of the Charter rights at issue, and therefore cannot stand."

Charter rights in conflict

The TWU School of Law has yet to open its doors to its first class of students, but at the heart of the controversy is Trinity Western's requirement that 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.

The procedural decision reached by Hinkson precluded a proper discussion of the conflicting charter rights between freedom of religion and equality rights, Kendra Milne, director of law reform at West Coast Leaf said in a statement.

"It is unfortunate that this important issue, which engages fundamental rights, was not resolved in the decision and that the procedural issues in the case may cause additional delays in having these important issues determined.

"B.C. lawyers voted twice and made it very clear that they want an inclusive profession that respects equality."

They want Christians to be morally equal to gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and trannys.

After the October 2014 vote, Victoria lawyer Michael Mulligan said the school's policy is discriminatory against people in LGBTQ relationships.

Hello? It's a Christian school! How many LGBTQs attend or want to attend Trinity Western - zero! There's no conflict here. This is simply an overt attack on Christianity by the LGBTQ community and its supporters.

"The policies of this university are inconsistent with core values of the legal profession, insofar that this university continues to dispel or expel students for their private sexual activities," he said at the time.

In July this year, an Ontario court upheld the Ontario law society's refusal to accredit TWU law graduates, but in March, Nova Scotia's Supreme Court ruled that its province's law society could not deny accreditation to TWU law grads (the decision is being appealed).