Nobody is saying Christians aren't capable, willing, or motivated to represent gay clients to the best of their ability. In fact, a common exercise in law school is to present someone with a particular problem, and then have the student argue against his/her own personal viewpoint. The problem here is a systemic discriminatory policy that is contrary to the very essence of what a lawyer is. Whether he/she represents corporations, straight clients, gay clients, transgender clients, or whatever else, is irrelevant.

Wow this statement completely misses the point.

Although, now that you've brought it up... NO. Absolutely no one is saying that Christians cannot be good lawyers.

I have friends at UBC who are devout Christians and they have friends that are LGBT, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. I have met successful lawyers who are Christian.

Christians (and everyone else) are free to identify themselves as such if they go to any other law school in Canada. There is nothing wrong with being Christian. What's wrong is when someone acts in a discriminatory manner to others. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld LGBT's right to equality and what TWU is doing is forcing them back into the closet so to speak.

This is the most retarded shit I've ever heard. No wonder Atheists hate religious people and religious people hate each other. So let's say I started a new religion that promoted Asian superiority and that women should not be schooled and should stay at home to cook and clean, and THEN I open a university that openly bans women and people not of Asian decent. Would you be OK with that? Would you say "oh it's a private school, let them do what they want"?

Where do you draw the line? Heck I don't even think religious schools should be allowed. Just as the church and state is separated, I would argue schooling is a part of the state and thus should be separate as well. Just as I wouldn't discriminate against a christian from entering any type of school, I would expect the same tolerance even from a Christian school. If UBC tomorrow decided to ban anyone who practiced religion, or wore any religious symbols, you would all be up in arms, but it's ok to do it under the guise of religion?

Mulligan received 1177 requests in less than a week, which is more than double what he needed to get in total. Special general meeting will go ahead.

Even more news coming out about this..

Law grads from B.C. faith-based school won?t be allowed to practise in Ontario - The Globe and Mail

The benchers over there made the right decision.

LSUC is the biggest law society in Canada and their decision should be influential on the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society meeting tomorrow and the special meeting again here in BC.

Manitoba is still left to vote as well, next month I think.

TWU got conditional approval from the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society. 10 voted to accredit conditionally and 9 voted not to accredit. The condition is that TWU must remove the discriminatory part of their Community Covenant.

Let us see if TWU decides to stick with its discriminatory stance in the face of the recent decisions by the LSUC and the NSBS.

N.S. law society rejects accreditation as long as Trinity Western maintains same-sex covenant - The Globe and Mail

Since Canada uses a lot of laws from the UK, it will be interesting to see when someone wants to introduce it here:

For people who don't have the attention span to read. UK Law Society is offering training courses on Sharia Law.

High street lawyers to get formal training in Islamic Sharia law - Telegraph

High street lawyers to get formal training in Islamic Sharia law
A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an 'introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms'
By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

9:00PM BST 26 Apr 2014

High street lawyers are being offered formal training in Islamic Sharia Law by the professional body which represents solicitors, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an “introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms”.

Critics said the fact that the Law Society was offering training in Sharia law created the “perception” that it was now “a legal discipline”.

It comes after the Society controversially published guidance last month to allow high street solicitors to draw up Sharia-compliant wills.

On Monday around 100 anti-Sharia law campaigners are expected to protest outside the Society’s head office in the heart of London’s legal establisment.
Sharia law is Islam’s legal system. It derives from the Koran and the Hadiths, the sayings and customs attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, as well as fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.

Currently, Sharia principles are not formally addressed by or included in Britain’s laws. However, a network of Sharia courts has grown up in Islamic communities to deal with disputes between Muslim families.

There are reported to be around 85 such courts in the UK – however campaigners say there could be far more.

The Sharia Law event at the Law Society’s headquarters on Chancery Lane, central London on June 24 has already sold out.

It offers training in Sharia law covering wills and inheritance, family and children and corporate and commercial law.

The course is billed as “a forerunner to a planned future seminar series on Islamic law”, the Law Society said.

The Society said: “This event will set you thinking on an important area of client service as our expert and authoritative speakers highlight some basic concepts and requirements of the Islamic Sharia applicable to these practice areas.”

Solicitors have to undertake 16 hours of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training every year in disciplines such as competition or corporate law.

The Sharia course counts for one and a half hours of this CPD training, which critics said meant that it “creates the perception that Sharia law is a legal discipline”.

Charlie Klendjian, a spokesman from the Lawyers’ Secular Society said: “It creates an ever increasing perception to the public and also to the legal profession that Sharia law is a legal discipline.

“Sharia law is not a legal discipline, it is theology and we can’t constantly keep giving it this credibility and it is certainly not for the Law Society to be doing that.

“It is damaging to the perception of the primacy of English law, and that is what the Law Society don’t appreciate.”

There is increasing concern about by the use of Sharia Law in communities in the UK – last week a campaign called ShariaWatch was launched to monitor its spread.

There were unsubstantiated claims at its launch in the House of Lords that MPs and peers were afraid to speak out about Sharia Law because of the fear of reprisals.

Baroness Cox, a campaigning cross-bench peer who hosted the launch, said the Law Society’s encouragement for Sharia law was “disturbing”.

She said: “While every citizen in this country is free to practice their religion, it is deeply disturbing that an organisation as prestigious as the Law Society appears to be encouraging the implementation of Sharia Law.”

Islamic law was “often inherently discriminatory against women”, including in the way women were treated in divorce and inheritance cases, she said.

Lady Cox added: “Muslim women have claimed they feel ‘betrayed’ by Britain: they came here to escape Sharia law and they find the situation worse here than in the countries they came from.”

A Law Society spokesman said: “We hold hundreds of CPD events every year, on topics ranging from legal aid to being a happy LGB [Lesbian, Gay, Bisxexual] lawyer. That does not make these topics all legal disciplines.

“Our CPD programme is a process of continuous learning to maintain and further develop solicitors’ competence and performance across a range of subjects. Our CPD events help lawyers better serve their clients, whatever their background.”

The Society said it had held four events on Islamic Law between 2004 and 2006, although Sharia Law was not mentioned in the titles of these events.

This reminds me of Bill Maher last night (from 2m20s onwards):

Hats Off to the Ontario Law Society


there are mediation services available in many faiths even in Canada

i don't fucking get it man. lawyers are just professionals that understand the lingo and the system better than you do. and they're there to represent you cuz you're too fucking stupid to represent yourself in their game of legal jargon.

at the end it's always up to the judge or jury right? i mean... so who the fuck cares who represents you. the legal system shouldn't care. it still has to pass through the final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral.

The "final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral" decides based on the arguments the lawyer representing you make. Once again, this isn't about "Christian" lawyers being incompetent to represent certain people. It's about the TWU law discriminating against certain types of Canadians and being incompatible with the requirements/values of the law society.

Since most appointed judges spent much of their early career's as lawyers, wouldn't the possibility of appointing a TWU lawyer as a judge put a key tenent of our justice system (blind justice) into question?

From what I gather, since TWU is no longer recognized, does that mean all current and former students and graduates are affected?

So are all current students that haven't written the bar screwed now??

don't know if serious. i think you need to re-gather. :suspicious:

^I saw a small blurb in the metro that TWU isn't recognized anymore? I guess i'm missing something?

Yup, nothing said it wasn't recognized any more. In a nut shell, they want to be recognized which was what the BC law society did, accredit them. This is now being challenged.
Go back and read the OP. The last paragraph of the quoted article says TWU would have it's first class start in 2016, therefore, no student is currently effected by this.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought they already had classes going.

If that were true some lawyers wouldn't be changing many times more than other lawyers.

Bump.

Special general meeting of the Law Society of BC is tomorrow. Hard to say how the vote will go. Most/all of the lawyers at my firm are voting against accreditation.

I was there today. It was a pretty large turnout. You could definitely get a feel for the crowd, the vast majority were in favour of the resolution (against TWU). Before the vote went down, they had an opportunity for speakers on both sides of the vote to speak and voice their opinions and views on the subject.

YES TWU NOT ACCREDITED.

Voting is happening again today on 3 options.

for anyone interested, I think the following link takes you to the live stream...

Law Society of BC Benchers' Meeting on Livestream