Defend religious freedom
I read Neil Godbout’s Saturday editorial “Some freedoms are limited” and found it rather curious that Mr. Godbout would include a disclaimer that his colleague happens to be a graduate of TWU.
Is he implying that his colleague’s bias overrides the validity of his opinion? I am a college graduate (UNBC), but not from TWU, and I support them in their battle to establish a school of law.
Trinity Western is no stranger to accreditation battles. They had similar battles in 1995 over teachers and later over nurses. Both times, eventually, Trinity prevailed. Trinity has been educating nurses and teachers now for more than a decade, without falling afoul of their regulatory bodies. If they are able to do so successfully for nurses and teachers, why not lawyers? Is law a significantly more challenging discipline?
Secondly, Mr. Godbout’s argument is terribly tortured. Is the law society a private enterprise? If so, then why are lawyers required by the province to be members of the law society? They can’t have it both ways. If they are truly a private enterprise, then they cannot force lawyers to become members of the law society, nor force them to take bar exams.
As I don’t think that’s really in the best interest of the province to permit lawyers to call themselves such without these examinations, it seems clear to me that the law society really isn’t a private enterprise.
I am sure that Mr. Godbout would be upset if he found out that the law society barred graduates on the basis of their ethnicity. So why are they allowed to reject TWU?
They aren’t arguing that TWU is incapable of providing an adequate legal education, but rather that what TWU believes is grounds for denying accreditation. This is a very dangerous assertion. Should all Christian lawyers be disbarred if they publicly support biblical teachings on marriage? Should we be forced to turn in our degrees in other fields as well?
Charter rights are Charter rights. As was said many years ago, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” We cannot use the Charter to remove rights from the Charter without removing the entire Charter.
Mr. Godbout, I hope that your defense of our rights to freedom of speech are stronger than your defense of our freedom of religion.
Sean Ollech Prince George