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A Little Opinion Piece on Rights
7 years ago
General
I originally sent this as an email to a CBC radio news magazine show called Day 6. They had aired an article about the Supreme Court of Canada handing down a decision about a particularly contentious case, (which I summarize below.) Mainly I just wanted to get rid of the Otter Day post.
Warning: my opinions might be controversial.
I am writing today about the case of Trinity Western University's recently-thwarted attempt to force the law societies of British Columbia and Ontario to grant accreditation to students from their proposed law school equally with other law schools. As you know, Trinity Western wanted to impose a "covenant" on their law students. (I should mention that I am not familiar with the differences between a "covenant" and other forms of agreement.) This "covenant," among other things, would have required their law students, (and does require all of their students), to have no sex of any kind until they are married, to have sex only with the person they marry, and to marry only a person of the opposite physical gender from themselves, (the latter being the point.) This would have discriminated against LGBT persons by restricting them either from enrolling as law students at Trinity Western or from ever having sex. Because of this, the Law Societies of Ontario and BC decided that they would never give accreditation to Trinity Western's law school graduates. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld those Law Societies' decision. They acknowledged Trinity Western's right to exercise their religious beliefs by discriminating against LGBT persons. But they decided that it is "proportionate and reasonable" to limit that freedom, reasoning that the rights of LGBT persons to not be discriminated against must also be protected.
What I want to comment on is the contention between rights, and between the people who own them, both in this case and in general. This was a case in which the religious rights of one group ran counter to another group's rights not to be discriminated against over something that they can't help or change. It should not be surprising. There are many cases in which one right can contradict another right or one person's, (or group's), rights can contradict another's. This is just one such case.
Now there are two ways to deal with rights that conflict with each other. One is to decide that some rights are important and others are not, that some people's rights matter and other's don't, and then rank them in order of importance. I would not want to live in that world. For instance, I would not want a white, male politician's right to freedom of expression to trump that of a black or aboriginal, female politician's, nor would I want it to trump my right to decide whether I will listen to either of them. (Obviously, this is only a hypothetical example.)
The other way is to decide that all rights, and everybody's rights, are equally valid and important and must be equally protected. Where rights conflict, you acknowledge that every right is limited by every other right; that everybody's rights are limited by everybody else's rights; that there are no absolute rights, (not even freedom of expression or freedom of religion.) Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. As to where the boundaries between rights should be drawn, and who should draw them, this is why we have courts and why courts must be impartial. Who better to judge than a judge? Laws, after all, are the way in which rights are enforced in the everyday world.
Right at the start, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms says, "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." I believe that this is what that means. There are no absolute rights. Every right is limited by every other right. Everybody's rights are limited by everybody else's rights. Where rights conflict, our impartial courts of law are the ones to sort it out. So what happened between the Law Societies and Trinity Western is just what should have happened. The Supreme Court weighed the right to freedom of religion and conscience, (CCRF section 2a), against equality rights, (CCRF section 15), and, in the end, they ruled for the latter.
Anyway, that's what I think. Thank you for your attention...
Warning: my opinions might be controversial.
I am writing today about the case of Trinity Western University's recently-thwarted attempt to force the law societies of British Columbia and Ontario to grant accreditation to students from their proposed law school equally with other law schools. As you know, Trinity Western wanted to impose a "covenant" on their law students. (I should mention that I am not familiar with the differences between a "covenant" and other forms of agreement.) This "covenant," among other things, would have required their law students, (and does require all of their students), to have no sex of any kind until they are married, to have sex only with the person they marry, and to marry only a person of the opposite physical gender from themselves, (the latter being the point.) This would have discriminated against LGBT persons by restricting them either from enrolling as law students at Trinity Western or from ever having sex. Because of this, the Law Societies of Ontario and BC decided that they would never give accreditation to Trinity Western's law school graduates. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld those Law Societies' decision. They acknowledged Trinity Western's right to exercise their religious beliefs by discriminating against LGBT persons. But they decided that it is "proportionate and reasonable" to limit that freedom, reasoning that the rights of LGBT persons to not be discriminated against must also be protected.
What I want to comment on is the contention between rights, and between the people who own them, both in this case and in general. This was a case in which the religious rights of one group ran counter to another group's rights not to be discriminated against over something that they can't help or change. It should not be surprising. There are many cases in which one right can contradict another right or one person's, (or group's), rights can contradict another's. This is just one such case.
Now there are two ways to deal with rights that conflict with each other. One is to decide that some rights are important and others are not, that some people's rights matter and other's don't, and then rank them in order of importance. I would not want to live in that world. For instance, I would not want a white, male politician's right to freedom of expression to trump that of a black or aboriginal, female politician's, nor would I want it to trump my right to decide whether I will listen to either of them. (Obviously, this is only a hypothetical example.)
The other way is to decide that all rights, and everybody's rights, are equally valid and important and must be equally protected. Where rights conflict, you acknowledge that every right is limited by every other right; that everybody's rights are limited by everybody else's rights; that there are no absolute rights, (not even freedom of expression or freedom of religion.) Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. As to where the boundaries between rights should be drawn, and who should draw them, this is why we have courts and why courts must be impartial. Who better to judge than a judge? Laws, after all, are the way in which rights are enforced in the everyday world.
Right at the start, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms says, "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." I believe that this is what that means. There are no absolute rights. Every right is limited by every other right. Everybody's rights are limited by everybody else's rights. Where rights conflict, our impartial courts of law are the ones to sort it out. So what happened between the Law Societies and Trinity Western is just what should have happened. The Supreme Court weighed the right to freedom of religion and conscience, (CCRF section 2a), against equality rights, (CCRF section 15), and, in the end, they ruled for the latter.
Anyway, that's what I think. Thank you for your attention...
https://www.twu.ca/about/fact-sheet