Every freedom has its limits

That whirring sound you’ll hear all weekend is Prince George Citizen columnist and Trinity Western University alumnus Nathan Giede sharpening his pencil for his column next week about the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling Friday siding with the B.C. and Ontario legal socieities against TWU’s proposed law school.

The university had asked every province’s law society whether it would accredit its graduates, which is normally a formality that involves checking whether the academic program is rigorous enough to properly train a new generation of lawyers. In TWU’s case, however, the provincial legal societies honed in on the school’s evangelical Christian values and particularly the covenant all students are required to sign, which states that sexual intimacy is only allowed between a man and a woman once they are married.

While six provincial law societies were willing to offer accreditation to TWU law school graduates, two of them — B.C. and Ontario — said no, arguing that the covenant violated the Charter rights of LGBTQ students. Giede will passionately defend his alma mater, as he has before on these pages, and its right to its religious beliefs. It’s also his right to do so. Another TWU alumni, Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, fired out a press release Friday morning, criticizing the decision and saying it left him worrying about the future of religious freedom in Canada.

He needn’t fret. While this ruling may be a loss for TWU specifically, it’s actually a victory for evangelical Christians.

Five of the Supreme Court justices specifically stated that their concern was specifically tied to the covenant, not to TWU’s religious ethics.

“... (a) mandatory covenant is not absolutely required to study law in a Christian environment in which people follow certain religious rules of conduct, and attending a Christian law school is preferred, not necessary, for prospective TWU law students,” they wrote.

So imagine the identical scenario, with the roles reversed. Say UNBC, for example, introduced a covenant that all students were forced to sign which stated that they must actively encourage and accommodate sexual and gender diversity in all of its forms while at UNBC, regardless of their own religious beliefs.

If an evangelical Christian student refused to sign, the Supreme Court would be able to cite the above language as precedent in ruling for the student and against the school. A covenant, the justices would argue, is an unfair infringement by an institution on an individual’s personal beliefs and is not required to provide a quality education in a safe and inclusive environment.

Here’s another example where evangelical Christians win under Friday’s court decision.

If UNBC sued a Christian-based international aid agency, arguing that the agency was discriminating against its graduates by picking TWU graduates first, the agency would have a strong legal defence. It could argue that it has the right to freedom of association under the Charter and only employing candidates who received a Christian education is a reasonable standard for employment. Note how that’s the mirror image of the legal argument made by the B.C. and Ontario law societies.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favour of a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it violated his Christian beliefs. On the surface, they are contradictory decisions but they actually have more similarities than differences.

In the American case, the baker is free to refuse business and the couple is still free to seek another baker to produce a wedding cake. In the Canadian case, the B.C. and Ontario law societies are free to refuse to recognize TWU law school grads but TWU is still free to keep its guiding principles and its student covenant. Furthermore, as long as the B.C.’s Ministry of Advanced Education approved it, TWU is still free to create a law school and a TWU law school grad would still be able to be called to the bar in most of the country.

On both sides of the border, these corresponding judgments set reasonable limits on fundamental freedoms while preserving the overall freedoms of individuals and organizations with contrary beliefs, including evangelical Christians.

Put another way, it’s not that different from the freedoms of Citizen opinion writers and the freedom of Citizen readers. For those who don’t like what you’ve just read or anything else you read in The Citizen, you’re free to enjoy other content in the newspaper or on our website that you may like better. Your opposition to the opinion doesn’t give you the freedom to silence its writer or to force that writer to have an opinion you’d prefer, just as its writer shouldn’t silence or change your opposing letters to the editor and online comments (unless you’re breaking libels law or saying bad words).

In Canada and the United States, as individuals and as news media outlets, we’re free to hold and express many personal personal beliefs, and those freedoms are constitutionally protected. What we’re not free to do, and what the top courts in both countries recently have decided, is force others to change their beliefs to fit ours.

That’s where freedom ends and tryranny starts.

Neil Godbout is managing editor of The Prince George Citizen.