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Instead, they appealed to the value of ideological diversity over “indoctrination,” and to teachers’ professional expertise and judgment in leading their classrooms.

The Yes side countered that SOGI 123 does, in fact, rely on teachers’ expertise to craft lesson plans appropriate to their classes. And they made arguments familiar to anyone following the sex-ed wars: that high rates of bullying reported by LGBTQ youth, both unacceptable on their face and bad for educational outcomes, have been improved by such curricula.

In theory, this could have been any university debate. But these were teachers in training at Trinity Western University, so the Yes side also appealed directly to what makes the school special — or problematic, if you prefer.

“The Bible calls for us to care for the marginalized, and for those who are unable to look out for themselves,” they argued. “And while we are not saying (you should) throw your theological beliefs out the window, our public education system needs to reflect the culture that it is in.”

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Students here are well aware, however, that balancing private faith and public work is no simple matter.

When Trinity, a private evangelical Christian institution, first proposed a faculty of education in 2000, the B.C. College of Teachers rejected its application: It argued that the university’s community covenant, which prohibits “sexual intimacy” outside of marriage between a man and a woman, impugned graduates’ qualifications to teach in the real world.