GAY TRUTH

On Friday, June 15, the Supreme Court of Canada threw out a quarter-century of legal precedent on religious liberty by deciding, by a margin of 7-2, that it was “proportionate and reasonable” for the law societies of British Columbia and Ontario to refuse accreditation to any law students coming from Trinity Western University due to TWU’s much-maligned “community covenant.” The covenant, which students who choose to attend Trinity agree to, is a lifestyle policy that asks students to adhere to biblical codes of conduct, including the restriction of sexual activity to heterosexual marriage. It was this covenant—again, a code of conduct for a small, privately-funded evangelical university that nobody has to attend if they don’t want to—that led law societies to claim that students coming from a TWU law school would not be able to escape their particular bias, and thus should not be accredited.  Their presumption, apparently, is that people who have a specific set of religi...

Canadians can take pride in a number of national achievements, not all of which occur on ice rinks. But protecting the fundamental freedoms of expression and religion isn’t chief among them. Enter same-sex marriage. Introduced by the Canadian courts a decade ago, same-sex marriage has become, for many, a cherished symbol of tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance. So much so that many have a difficult time seeing any reason to tolerate continued dissent. According to this line of thinking, the wellbeing of gays and lesbians can only be secured in a milieu that now forbids even raising the question of whether there might be some drawbacks for a society that has abandoned the conjugal conception of marriage. So what is to be done about religious communities that simply cannot give up on the idea that communities are best served by a conception of marriage characterized by a lifelong, exclusive commitment between one man and one woman? What are the terms for their continued participation in...

Trinity Western University (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) August 6, 2013 ( The Public Discourse ) - Canadians can take pride in a number of national achievements, not all of which occur on ice rinks. But protecting the fundamental freedoms of expression and religion isn’t chief among them. Enter same-sex marriage. Introduced by the Canadian courts a decade ago, same-sex marriage has become, for many, a cherished symbol of tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance. So much so that many have a difficult time seeing any reason to tolerate continued dissent. According to this line of thinking, the wellbeing of gays and lesbians can only be secured in a milieu that now forbids even raising the question of whether there might be some drawbacks for a society that has abandoned the conjugal conception of marriage. So what is to be done about religious communities that simply cannot give up on the idea that communities are best served by a conception of marriage characterized by a lifelong, ...