Excuse me, are you gay? If so, go elsewhere.
A few weeks ago, I put on my dark suit and collar, then headed off to speak at a funeral. I was just out of our building when a man I know slightly suddenly stepped out of nowhere and put a question to me. Actually it wasn’t really a question. He wanted to tell me something: the Bible says gay sex is sinful so therefore gay people should not be ministers. It was one of those moments: my mind was on the service so I drew a breath, mumbled something or other — I hope courteously — and kept going. But in retrospect it was a helpful reminder of something: that the anti-gay lobby may be dispersed, even sidelined, but it’s still with us. And active. In fact, in Canada just now, there’s a well-funded ambition, if not movement, to keep gay people from becoming not ministers, but lawyers.
Its focus is now fixed on Trinity Western University, opened in 1962 in Langley, BC, a pleasant and affluent town, with a township population of about 110,000 thousand roughly 50 km. from Vancouver. Trinity is an evangelical, conservative institution with a current enrollment of over 3,000 students. For roughly a year it’s been promulgating its plan to open a law school. But it will be a law school with a difference: no gay or lesbian aspirants need apply. A spokesperson for the university justifies the university’s policy as being based on “its endorsement of traditional Biblical views on marriage”. That invites important questions and not just about the definition of “traditional Biblical views”.
The larger question has to do with the academic legitimacy of a university that would even propose such a policy. This is not to imply the university is dishonorable. That said, it’s also one thing to establish, say, a “Christian seminary” or a “Bible School” with such an exclusionary policy. But it’s another, and a much more major matter, to call the institution a “university” while excluding students on the basis of sexual orientation. Trinity’s founders designated it a private and Christian university, which means that those admitted will have a firm commitment to “the Bible as the divinely inspired, authoritative guide for personal and community life…” This, in itself, poses a problem. For, to all appearances, it leaves an inference that will discourage many people from even considering Trinity Western UNIVERSITY. I mean Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and so on. I actually doubt if those of us who are liberal Christians would find acceptance.
To be reasonably objective, what’s wrong with Trinity Western’s ambitions? To begin with, the very fact that the deans of law schools from coast to coast are strongly against the proposition is enough to provoke skepticism in all thoughtful people. The statement of The Council of Law Deans — circulated by William Flanagan, Dean of the law school at Queen’s, one of Canada’s most respected universities — took the position that Trinity Western’s Covenant (stipulating that all students must adhere to Biblical ideals, which, in TW’s view, bans same sex relations) was at odds with the values of every Canadian law school. Subsequently, law students themselves at Osgoode Hall, University of Saskatchewan, Dalhousie, UBC, University of Ottawa, Universite du Quebec, and others, all declared support for the deans’ statement. They said clearly that Trinity Western’s vision on who will be admissible to its proposed law school, is at odds not just with the values of all Canada’s law schools, but also with the core values of the Canadian people reflected in federal and provincial public policies.
Fortunately, the Trinity Western proposal has drawn the attention of the country’s best known civil liberties lawyer, Clayton Ruby, who after hearing of the plan, made public a very worrying concern: that it could be a precedent for others. Somehow I doubt that; fundamentalist Christianity is not at least yet, that strong in Canada. Ruby, along with lawyer colleague Angela Chiasson, commented in an op-ed essay awhile back, that not only is the proposal unwarranted but the attitude that accompanies it is so patronizing and dismissive as to be rude: “Those who do not agree with our religious views are welcome to apply elsewhere.” As the two lawyers put it in an article: “This reasoning is characteristic of discriminatory systems long rejected in Canada: ‘This water fountain is clearly marked whites only — use another’. Or else ‘No Jews allowed…. Stick to your own kind….’ It’s appalling that such perverse thinking exists after all the progress Canada has made and our national commitment to equality….. Canada should move forward not backwards….”
There’s another aspect: to me, it’s very regrettable that the Christian faith (which laid the foundation for so many of our finest universities including Mount Allison, Dalhousie and Queen’s) is by implication, drawn into this distracting dispute. Christian faith is being exploited, thereby used as a political wedge to prop up a harsh theses not supported by the vast majority of sophisticated theological scholars. Most, if they are able to speak on the matter (some are intimidated by their conservative and politicized hierarchies) will say that the Scriptures are not — if considered in historical context and objectively studied — a sure and certain guide on the morality of same sex relationships. One reference will suffice: two verses in the book of Leviticus. Yes two. (Out of 27 chapters, many thousands of words and thought to be written about 1,400 B.C.) One says simply “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
If you’re comfortable taking guidance on major life issues in the 21st century from one verse written when the earth was flat, indeed very flat, then also turn a few pages to the Book of Psalms. Check the 137th psalm, verse 9. That verse advocates smashing the heads of infants against the stones. Yes, you’re right, that does seem a bit extreme. That’s why scholars have concluded it was a call to genocide. That’s why historical context matters. So much for the theological “scholarship” that’s a large part of what’s provoking the plan to exclude gay or lesbian persons from a law school. (Oh, and lest I forget, if the proposed policy, was ever enacted, it would mean that neither the Premier of Ontario or The Moderator of the United Church, both married, need ever apply for entrance to Trinity Western Law School. (That’s why I call the whole thing a head-shaker.)
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