The Patriot Post® · Err Canada: P.C. Policies Try to Shutter Campus Plans
Trinity Western University was supposed to make history – instead, it’s becoming a casualty of it. Canada’s long tradition of pro-homosexual policies took another victim this month when officials in British Columbia refused to recognize graduates of TWU’s School of Law because of its Christian roots.
Plans to launch the school in 2016 hit a snag with the accreditation process in September once law societies realized the campus would be a religious one. “Trinity Western is open and welcome to all,” said TWU spokesperson Guy Saffold. In particular, the provinces object to the school’s biblical stance on homosexuality. Critics say TWU’s statement of faith includes a line about reserving sexual intimacy for marriage, which they believe is the union of a man and woman. Unless cooler heads prevail, the school is prepared to go to the mat in court against the liberal-leaning Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Unfortunately, this is exactly the situation cities like Houston are finding themselves in after signing on to these special rights ordinances. Local officials have managed to quietly slip the policies through city councils in places like Lewiston, Idaho; Springfield, Missouri; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Phoenix, Arizona; San Antonio, Texas; and other places without the people’s approval. Then, once the measures are enacted, liberals use them as a bludgeon against men and women of faith – as we’ve all witnessed up close and personal in Houston. Americans need to realize that these efforts – like the one underway in Texas – lead to the silencing of men and women of faith.
That’s why I Stand Sunday was so important. It showed the urgency of standing against the ordinances that trample on our religious liberty and pave the way for even greater persecution. “You say, ‘Is America headed that way, Phil?’” said “Duck Dyansty’s” patriarch. “We’re headed that way,” Phil told the crowd in Houston. They “hated the Son of God, and now they hate us…” But, he pointed out, that wasn’t the end of the story. He hopes “just like the apostle Paul that you will stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel.”
We’ll Be Brief: FRC Files on Marriage in the Fifth
If you want to motivate voters, try trampling their right to self-govern. For more than a year, Americans have watched it happen in courtrooms across the country, as a handful of judges try to junk the marriage amendments passed by more than 41 million people. [Monday], FRC did its part to stand with those voters by filing a friend of the court brief in the Fifth Circuit case supporting the state of Louisiana as it defends their marriage amendment approved by 78% of voters. You might remember that Judge Martin Feldman was the first to uphold a marriage referendum in a year and a half – and has suffered for it ever since.
Paul Linton, a constitutional appellate lawyer from Illinois, wrote the brief, which debunks the idea that there’s a “fundamental right to marry” in the U.S. Constitution. He also weighs in on the Left’s argument that Louisiana’s definition of marriage somehow “discriminates” on the basis of sex or gender. Obviously, everyone can marry. The state just requires that you do so with a member of the opposite sex. Check out the text here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.