Dear Editor:
I find myself in complete agreement with the headline of your opinion piece of Friday, June 13.
(Supporting discrimination is simply wrong). The decision of some 77 per cent of the lawyers of B.C. to discriminate against future graduates of Trinity Western University School of Law is simply wrong.
Under the terms of its charter, Trinity Western University is required to provide university education with an underlying philosophy and viewpoint that is Christian. While it is certainly true that certain Christian sects and denominations have endorsed same-sex unions or marriages, the majority have not.
Throughout the over 50 years of its existence, TWU has required students to adopt a community covenant consistent with its Christian worldview. When Trinity Western's community covenant was challenged by the B.C. Teachers' Federation in 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with Trinity Western.
It is interesting to note that the Civil Marriage Act specifically states that no person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, by reason of the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.
Sadly, if the Law Society of B.C. reverses its acceptance of Trinity Western University as an approved faculty of law, Trinity Western's future law school graduates will in fact be deprived of the right to practise law in British Columbia (although Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island, and possibly others, will accept them), not due to their training or ability as lawyers and whether they are "of good character and repute" (the current criteria in the Legal Profession Act), but due to the school which issued their law degree.
This is discrimination. And for 3,210 lawyers to have supported it on June 10 is simply wrong.
Peter Anderson, New Westminster
