An Ontario court has upheld the Law Society of Upper Canada’s decision not to accredit an evangelical Christian law school that forbids students from having sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

Trinity Western University, which plans to open its law school next year in British Columbia, had been denied accreditation last year in a 28-21 vote by the regulatory body. It then applied to Ontario’s Divisional Court for a judicial review of that decision. The court heard arguments over four days last month.

The university has faced controversy over its “community covenant” — a document students must sign promising to abstain from “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman,” which has been highlighted as especially discriminatory toward LGBTQ persons.

It was a conclusion that was also reached by the three judges who heard the case, which pitted religious rights against equality rights.

“In order to attend TWU, (LGBTQ persons) must sign a document in which they agree to essentially bury a crucial component of their very identity, by forsaking any form of intimacy with those persons with whom they wish to form a relationship,” reads the 41-page decision released Thursday by Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco and Justices Edward Then and Ian Nordheimer.

“Contrary to the contention of the applicants, that requiring persons to refrain from such acts does not intrude on the rights of LGBTQ persons, it is accepted that sexual conduct is an integral part of a person’s very identity. One cannot be divorced from the other.”

The university said it plans to appeal. The court’s decision “points a knife at the freedom of faith communities across Canada to hold and practice their beliefs,” spokesman Guy Saffold said in a statement.

The court ruled that the Law Society’s decision did not violate TWU students’ freedom of association or freedom of expression, and that while TWU is not subject to the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Law Society is. The court found that although the Law Society’s decision interfered with the right to religious freedom, it ultimately applied a proper balancing of Charter rights and came to a reasonable conclusion.

“In exercising its mandate to advance the cause of justice, to maintain the rule of law and to act in the public interest, the respondent was entitled to balance the applicants’ rights to freedom of religion with the equality rights of its future members, who include members from two historically disadvantaged minorities (LGBTQ persons and women),” says the ruling.

“It was entitled to consider the impact on those equality rights of accrediting TWU’s law school, and thereby appear to give recognition and approval to institutional discrimination against those same minorities. Condoning discrimination can be ever much as harmful as the act of discrimination itself.”

Law Society treasurer Janet Minor told the Star the regulatory body was pleased with the decision.

“Particularly so because the court both confirmed our jurisdiction, but also confirmed that we had appropriately considered all the rights involved,” she said, adding it sends a message to LGBTQ persons that “their eligibility should be on their merits, as all other applicants are.”

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The ruling comes just months after a Nova Scotia judge found that the Nova Scotia Barristers Society could not deny accreditation to Trinity Western, and ordered that it pay the university’s costs. The society is appealing that decision.

The judges in the Ontario case noted that the two matters involved different circumstances, most significantly that the NSBS does not have as broad a jurisdiction as the Law Society of Upper Canada.