"It should be front page news across Canada," states Sun Media's Ezra Levant in an email news alert. Due to the results of a referendum among the province's lawyers, the British Columbia Law Society voted recently to reverse an earlier decision to accredit Trinity Western University (TWU) law school graduates. As a result, graduates of TWU's law school will not be able to practise law in British Columbia (BC).
The legal profession rejected accreditation for TWU's graduates based on a personal pledge of conduct the university's students are required to sign. The pledge, which includes a promise to abstain from sex outside of traditional marriage, raises a same-sex equality rights issue for the BC Law Society, but pits it against religious freedom in Canada.
Calling it discrimination against Christians, Ezra Levant also claims the society's decision is illegal. In 2001, when the BC College of Teachers excluded TWU students, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the university. According to an article published in The Globe and Mail, TWU spokesman Guy Saffold states, "The law school is essentially the same issue." The next step would be to sue the BC Law Society based on the Canadian Charter of Rights. "We'd certainly like to find a way to resolve it apart from the legal process," he adds. "We're quite committed as a Christian university to our religious beliefs, and those are not things we could easily compromise."
The BC Law Society's decision is not just a concern to the university, but to all Canadian Christians because it sets a precedent affecting freedom of religion in our country.
While thanking God for the freedoms that we have here in Canada, please pray that the BC Law Society's decision to refuse accreditation to law students at TWU would be overturned. May the members of the law society see clearly that the rights and religious freedom of all Canadians have equal value under the law. Ask that this case will be resolved quickly apart from the legal process, and that the Lord's purposes would prevail in the lives of these law students. May all Canadian Christians value their religious freedom while guarding against the onslaught of any institution or governing body that would attempt to take this freedom away. And may God continue to keep our land glorious and free.
