Lawyers Wes McMillan and Michael Spratt discuss TWU decision

In this interview, recorded on Monday, June 18, 2018, Ian Bushfield executive director of the BC Humanist Association speaks with Wes McMillan who served as pro-bono counsel for the BCHA at the Supreme Court of Canada and with Michael Spratt, cohost of the Canadian legal podcast The Docket. They discuss the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling that upholds the decision by law societies in Ontario and BC to reject a proposed law school at Trinity Western University. TWU is an evangelical school here in BC that requires all students to sign a community covenant that forbids sex outside a heterosexual marriage. The law societies rejected the proposed school as a means of ensuring equal access to the bar for LGBTQ people. The decision is historic for its recognition of the importance of fighting homophobia and for the limits of what can be claimed under religious freedom. Ultimately the majority found that the harm to the LGBTQ community outweighed the impact on the religious freedom claimed by TWU and its supporters. Specifically the majority wrote, “Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.” To read more about our work on this case and our other efforts to defend secularism and human rights, visit bchumanist.ca Read more about the decision at https://www.bchumanist.ca/humanists_react_to_twu_decision