Trinity drops ban on sex out of marriage
LANGLEY — A Christian university in British Columbia will no longer require students to adhere to a covenant forbidding sex outside of heterosexual marriage.
The board of governors at Trinity Western University in Langley voted to make the school’s “community covenant” voluntary for students beginning this school year.
The private institution had applied to provincial law societies for accreditation of a law school but was denied in British Columbia and Ontario because of the covenant.
In June, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that requiring a person to behave contrary to their sexual identity is “degrading and disrespectful” in two landmark decisions that said law societies have the right to deny accreditation to the proposed law school. The high court said law societies in Ontario and British Columbia were entitled to ensure equal access to the bar, support diversity and prevent harm to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students.
The legal action pitted two societal values — freedom of religion and promotion of equality — against one another.
The motion passed Thursday said the intention behind it was to maintain Trinity Western as a “thriving community of Christian believers that is inclusive of all students wishing to learn from a Christian viewpoint and underlying philosophy.”
Trinity Western will also work to determine ways in which its Christian identity can continue to be strengthened while welcoming the unique value of each member of its diverse student body, the university said in a statement issued Tuesday.
“Let there be no confusion regarding the board of governors’ resolution; our mission remains the same. We will remain a biblically based, missionfocused, academically excellent university, fully committed to our foundational evangelical Christian principles,” president Robert Kuhn said in the statement. “We will continue to be a Christcentred community; one that is defined by our shared pursuit of seeking to glorify God by revealing His truth, compassion, reconciliation and hope to a world in need.”
Helen Kennedy, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy organization Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, said the covenant’s continued existence is problematic, even if it’s no longer mandatory.
“There is a larger issue with the covenant around creating a culture of intolerance and discrimination for incoming and current students,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The B.C. and Ontario law societies declined to comment on the decision.
Trinity Western proposed the law school in 2012 and received approval to open from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and British Columbia’s Ministry of Advanced Education. However, the ministry later withdrew approval.
The university wanted to ensure its graduates would be eligible to be called to the bar throughout Canada, and, therefore, applied to the provincial law societies for accreditation of the planned school.
Six law societies — Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador — granted accreditation. Nova Scotia’s law society refused accreditation, but the decision was overturned in the courts.