“Simply put, in balancing the interests of the applicants to freedom of religion and of the respondent’s members and future members to equal opportunity, in the course of the exercise of its statutory authority, the respondent arrived at a reasonable conclusion,” reads the decision.

An Ontario court has upheld the Law Society of Upper Canada’s decision not to accredit a controversial law school that requires, among other things, that students abstain from same-sex relations.

Trinity Western University, which plans to open its law school next year in British Columbia, had been denied accreditation last year in a 28-21 vote by the regulatory body. It then applied to Ontario’s Divisional Court for a judicial review of that decision, and the court heard arguments last month.

The university has faced controversy over its “community covenant” — a document students must sign promising to abstain from “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

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