Combative Societal Niceties

"The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us our own selection of world view. The practice of law does not allow for engaging in hateful behaviour any more than the practice of teaching or any other occupation in Canada. So the concerns seem to me to be unjustified."
Don Hutchinson, vice-president, general counsel, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

The Canadian Council of Law Deans has taken it upon themselves to defend Canadian values and sensibilities from the stringent moral values of Trinity Western University's "community covenant". This evangelical university which seeks to impose upon its academics and students alike a firm conviction in sexual abstinence as part of its moral covenant has raised the hackles of the prevailing mores in most academic circles.

Trinity Western' code of conduct includes a pledge that those associated with its educational environment cede to an oath to honour and become "abstinen[t] from sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness between a man and a woman." The president of the council of deans, Bill Flanagan, however, claims the covenant to be discriminatory against gay, lesbian and bisexual students. As such it is "fundamentally incompatible" with core values of Canadian law schools.

Therefore, the reasoning goes, Trinity Western University should be forbidden from advancing on its plans to open Canada's first (and presumably only) Christian law school. Faculty and students are surely at Trinity Western to begin with because they share the values so dear to the University. In taking up the pledge they commit to pursue and to honour those values. It would seem reasonable that gay, lesbian and bisexual students would view attendance at such an institution personal anathema.

They will not choose to attend Trinity Western. Those who do choose to attend agree wholeheartedly simply to follow their own convictions. Which may not mesh with what the broader Canadian society has come to accept, some enthusiastically, others grudgingly, but protection under the law is an equality right extended to all. Despite which not all have a wish to relax their own personal standards. So who does that impinge upon?

The hostile reception which the institution's bid for formal recognition has met is most certainly a form of discrimination in and of itself. For, in leading the charge against formalizing the university's intentions in a bid to deny it the right to initiate their own school of law, the charges of bigotry hidden behind a veneer of sexual propriety, leads one to the impression that the collective law deans are engaging in bullying tactics.

"To admit a new law school that has a policy that expressly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation is something that is very troubling for us", huffed Mr. Flanagan on behalf of his peers whose values encompass a more relaxed, casual view of sex and let us say promiscuity. The deans have appealed to the Federation of Canadian Law Societies to deeply ponder the implications of Trinity Western's covenant before permitting accreditation.

In an earlier resistance against the covenant that arose when Trinity sought to open a teacher's college, the Supreme Court responded on hearing the case by ruling in favour of the university, making note of the right to "freedom of conscience and religion." The law deans obviously feel committed to advancing the rights of gays, lesbians and the transgendered community, at the cost of same to the evangelical Christian community.

Their anti-religious bias is showing. "The fear of what would be taught in a classroom ten years ago, that's never materialized, it's not going to materialize and it's not going to happen in a law school", admonished Jonathan Raymond, Trinity's president. "We're not going to teach anti-gay curriculum." But his adversaries appreciate a good fight and prefer to believe otherwise.

Proud of their righteously upstanding bias.