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The movement to render the university unpalatable is not exactly the stuff of liberal tolerance. Indeed, Trinity Western’s opinion of extramarital sexual behaviour, whatever you may think of it, is derived from a genuine reading of its religious beliefs. Furthermore, the university makes no claim on the right of people outside its walls to engage in whatever ante-marital activities they may wish; nor does it make any claim on any person to forcibly live and study within those walls. It simply posits that legal training and Christian belief are not antithetical enterprises, and vows to hold its voluntary students to a standard of both.

The movement to render the university unpalatable is not exactly the stuff of liberal tolerance.

So the B.C. Supreme Court, which began hearing the case this week, should find solidly in favour of Trinity Western, and force the Law Society of British Columbia to grant it accreditation. The argument is literally between a justifiable claim of religious liberty and a social justice movement, which seems to find the language of fundamental freedoms to be only useful to its own cause, not to those who may hold a different opinion of how people ought to live.

Critically, the campaign against Trinity Western is not just an attack on the freedom of the university and the people who own, study at and work for it. Also at stake is the freedom of every prospective student who would be educated there. This includes people who disagree with the university’s take on sexual morals, but who may still choose to pursue a law degree according to the school’s merits. Does it make any sense to take that choice away from them, any more that it would to arbitrarily discredit another school that has proved its ability to train lawyers?