Christian university wins legal battle over stance on marriage

A Christian university which forbids its students from having sexual relations outside of marriage has won a legal battle against attempts to block accreditation for its proposed law school.

In a unanimous decision, the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld an earlier decision by a B.C. Supreme Court judge who ruled that the Law Society of British Columbia was wrong in refusing to accredit the law school proposed by Trinity Western University (TWU), CBC reported.

The law society argued that the university's community covenant, which bans sexual relations out of a heterosexual marriage, discriminated against members of the LGBT community.

The court dismissed the law society's appeal on Tuesday, stating that the decision to deny accreditation limits the right to freedom of religion in a disproportionate way.

The judges wrote that the law society's opposition "denies these Evangelical Christians the ability to exercise fundamental religious and associative rights," noting that those rights are protected under the Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"While we accept that approval of (Trinity Western's) law school has, in principle, a detrimental impact on LGBTQ equality rights, because the number of law school places would not be equally open to all students, the impact on applications made ... by LGBTQ students would be insignificant in real terms," the judges continued.

TWU released a statement expressing that it was pleased with the outcome of the case.

"Everyone, religious or not, should celebrate this decision as a protection of our Canadian identity," said TWU spokeswoman Amy Robertson.

TWU also fought similar legal battles over accreditation in Nova Scotia and Ontario. In June, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Law Society of Upper Canada to deny accreditation to the university.

The university won its case against the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society that same month. In August, the Barrister's Society decided not to take the case to the Supreme Court and allow TWU graduates to practice law in Nova Scotia.

Law societies in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have already granted accreditation to TWU. The societies in Newfoundland and Labrador still have not made a decision.