The heads of Canada’s law schools oppose Trinity Western University’s attempts to star the country’s first religious law school.

The Council of Canadian Law Deans has distributed a letter criticizing the evangelical Christian university’s long-standing requirement that faculty and students refrain from homosexual relationships.

“It’s very troubling for Canadian law school deans,” Bill Flanagan, president of the Canadian Council of Law Deans, said in an interview this week.

The deans’ objection is Trinity Western University’s Bible-based “community covenant,” which the council says makes clear that “gay, lesbian or bisexual students may be subject to disciplinary measures including expulsion.”

In a letter to the Federation of Canadian Law Societies, which has been distributed widely on law school campuses across Canada, Flanagan writes: “This is a matter of great concern for all members. … Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unlawful in Canada and fundamentally at odds with the core values of all Canadian law schools.”

Despite receiving a copy of the letter from the law deans, Trinity Western University’s website continued to maintain this week that the Langley university has “consulted widely with lawyers, judges, academics and professional organizations” about starting a Christian law school — and “none of these have expressed serious concern.”

The president of TWU, Jonathan Raymond, responded to the law deans in a Nov. 29 letter.

Raymond argued that TWU’s “community covenant,” which forbids homosexual relationships and sex outside marriage, is “consistent with federal and provincial law.”

Citing TWU’s earlier legal dispute with the B.C. College of Teachers, Raymond noted the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2001 that a religious school can exempt itself from human rights legislation forbidding discrimination against homosexuals.

The Supreme Court of Canada declared that TWU administrators have the right to require their staff, faculty and students refrain from homosexual relationships, based on the principles of “freedom of conscience and religion.”

TWU’s “community covenant” code also bans such activities as “gossip,” “lying” and drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes on campus.

In addition to opposing TWU’s ban on homosexual behaviour, Flanagan said the country’s law school deans join the Canadian Association of University Teachers in questioning whether authentic academic freedom exists at TWU, since all faculty must agree to the Bible-based standards.

TWU’s proposed law school, which is being spearheaded by self-described “Christian advocate” Janet Epp-Buckingham, seeks to enrol 60 law students in each year of a three-year program.

In a column in a leading Canadian evangelical magazine, Epp-Buckingham said her mission is to “develop Godly leaders for the marketplaces of life.” Christians, she said, often face a “hostile environment” in secular law schools.

As former legal counsel for the Ottawa-based Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Epp-Buckingham has frequently written columns in Christian media and has fought many battles against homosexual marriage, Canadian abortion laws and efforts to legalize and regulate assisted suicide.

Epp-Buckingham is director of Ottawa’s Laurentian Leadership Centre, which TWU set up in 1999 to train 40 students a year to become Christian advocates in federal politics, the media and public policy.