BYU Gets Better?

April 10, 2012 By

So there’s this college in Provo, Utah, that’s run by a socially conservative church. All of the students who choose to attend the school agree to adhere to a pretty strict honor code that governs the way they dress, forbids them from drinking alcohol, and explicitly bans students from having sex. I am, of course, talking about Brigham Young University and it shouldn’t exactly be news that the place exists or that students there are held to pretty strict moral standards.

But despite the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ somewhat undeserved reputation for a being comprised of a bunch of catalog models marching lockstep, I know from personal experience that BYU is a pretty diverse place ideologically and otherwise. (My mother and sister went there and a number of family friends have worked or taught there as well.)

College kids, as they are wont to do, have bucked the school’s honor codes in any number of ways over the years from various forms of public protest to publishing underground satirical newspapers. There have always been students determined not to adhere to the honor code. My sister attended BYU while Jim McMahon was the school’s quarterback and I don’t think I’m divulging any big secrets to say that he didn’t win awards for piety while he was a student there.

The bottom line is that BYU has an honor code and the students are supposed to abide by it. The Mormon church penalizes flagrant violations of the code, but isn’t running a prison camp here. Nor is BYU unique in running a religious college where students are expected to voluntarily adhere to certain moral standards.

So all that said, the Associated Press’s Cristina Silva recently made waves with a story about gay students at BYU making a video that has been included in Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign. While this development is undeniably news, and clearly worthy of mainstream coverage, Silva reports this story with an unwarranted tone of breathlessness throughout:

The video has sent tremors through the Mormon community and represents the latest effort to reconcile the church’s conservative values with a growing acceptance toward gay relationships. The video estimates there are more than 1,800 LGBT students at BYU. It also notes that the school is consistently ranked as one of the most unfriendly campuses for those students in the nation.

“Sent tremors through the Mormon community”? It would be nice to see generalizations such as that documented, otherwise it reads like editorializing. And in a story as potentially contentious as this, I’m not sure it’s the best journalistic practice to uncritically repeat statistics, without at least attempting to understand the basis for their figures. Silva does note how the church has evolved in recent years:

A mere five years ago, BYU students weren’t allowed to discuss their sexual orientation without risking expulsion under the school’s strict honor code. A clarification in 2007 stressed that “one’s stated sexual orientation is not an Honor Code issue.”

In 2010, BYU lifted a ban on advocacy of homosexuality. That same year, students formed Understanding Same-Gender Attraction. The support group drew eight people to its first meeting. This semester more than 80 students have attended the weekly meetings on campus.

Gay students must still adhere to much stricter standards than their heterosexual classmates under the updated honor code. While premarital sex is off limits to all BYU students, straight couples are allowed to kiss and cuddle openly on campus. Gay students cannot.

A “mere” five years ago? Such a loaded word reeks of editorializing. More broadly, much of the honor code at BYU would be considered strict in comparison to the behavior that’s come to define college life. If you’re looking for keggers, classes on post-structuralist theory, or an environment that is constantly affirming of a panoply of sexual behaviors — it shouldn’t be news that BYU is a different kind of university. This is being framed almost as if it’s an obvious injustice, instead of what every student should expect the place to be like before they matriculate.

That said, I suppose the video does represent how gay Mormons are becoming more vocal and this is an interesting development. I just wished Silva talked about it in a more serious fashion rather than relying on sympathetic anecdotes:

Adam White, a sophomore featured in the video, said he struggled with his sexual orientation during his first year at BYU.

“It was a very dark time for me because I was just feeling so confused,” he said. “I mean, I was living in an all-male dorm, and just being in such close contact. Everything I had suppressed was coming at me.” …

Joshua Behn, a gay activist and former BYU student who recently left the church, said he had doubts about the student video when he first heard of it.

“I was afraid it was going to be, `oh, you can deny your sexuality,’” he said. “But watching, they don’t make judgments about that. They are saying, `there are other people out there. You are not alone.’”

Randall Thacker, 39, said he “was completely closeted, completely ashamed” about his attraction to men when he graduated from BYU in 1997. A church leader sent him to therapy to change his sexual orientation.

“To see the video gives me so much incredible hope for the future,” said Thacker, a gay activist in Washington, D.C. “It seems like a miracle.”

These are certainly illuminating stories, but it would be nice if they were in any way balanced out with some perspectives from BYU administrators or church leaders. There’s also no discussion of what the church actually teaches about homosexuality from a religious standpoint, and how that affects BYU’s evolving policies here. Ultimately, there’s little doubt about where Silva’s sympathies lie here.

And my final bone to pick here is that, per the Behn anecdote above, Silva refers to gay Mormons being sent away for therapy by the church multiple times, and drops this on us:

Gay church members were often sent to rehabilitative therapy to “get fixed.”

Attention all news editors: Whenever scare quotes are used, especially in sensitive and unsubstantiated contexts like this, it should set off klaxons in the newsroom and the writer should have their knuckles rapped. I’m pretty sure therapy for gay members was never an official church policy — local bishops have a wide degree of latitude for how they help members of their wards. I don’t doubt that it did happen, but the impression here is as if sending gay Mormons off for reparative therapy was commonplace. Maybe it was, but given what I know about the church I’m skeptical. And given the way this allegation is cavalierly thrown out in this story, I’m doubly skeptical.

Overall, there are enough interesting details to be gleaned from Silva’s reporting and I give her lots of credit for understanding how to this video project is pushing the boundaries of the church’s increasing public tolerance of homosexuality. But if this story certainly deserved to be written, the distinct lack of balance ultimately gets in the way of a more complete understanding.

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Filed Under: Academia, Journalism, Mormons, Sex, Social Issues
  • Will

    I assume you meant to say that BYU “penalizes”, not “enforces flagrant violations”.

  • http://inklingsofreality.blogspot.com Chris Coppenbarger

    The gay activists are seemingly experts at inflating the numbers as well. Look at the following line:

    “The video estimates there are more than 1,800 LGBT students at BYU.”

    Really? Have the makers of the video done a survey of the students on sexual orientation?

    That bus tour advocacy group played that game a few years back in visiting Christian colleges and universities and whenever they got called on the carpet about it, they never responded.

    The media continues to play into the hands of the supposed “victimhood” of the gay activists, especially those like Dan Savage and his faux “It Gets Better” campaign.

  • mark

    Thanks Will. Fixed that.

  • Eric

    I’d like to see substantiation for this sentence:

    By posting the video, the students could face excommunication from the church and expulsion at BYU, where gay students are prohibited from touching or kissing.

    Someone can correct me if I’m wrong (I gave the video only a quick look a few days ago), but I don’t recall any of the students admitting to an excommunicable offense.

  • Ben

    Spokesperson for BYU said to cnn that the students have done nothing against the school rules in making the videos and she said what concerns her most is the talks of suicide in the videos. She wants the gay students to get help with suicidal thoughts via BYU counseling services. I went to BYU and there are lot’s of in the closet gay students. Many of those great BYU students in music and theater and who hold the callings are actually gay. There were many who admitted this to me. Hopefully, all of this will help them to live better lives and not be ashamed.

  • http://forgottencenotaph.blogspot.com J. Lahondere

    I’d like to echo what Eric wrote. I’d like to know where the journalist got this information on excommunication. I’ve never heard of anyone being excommunicated for being gay or for engaging in homosexual (or any premarital) sex. From what I’ve read on the subject, excommunication occurs when one in a position of authority is encouraging others to turn away from established doctrines of the church. I can’t speak officially but as a life-long LDS person, this is what I’ve always been taught about excommunication.

    I find this line about excommunication reprehensible and just utterly vile. I watched the video. Nothing in it is contrary to the teachings of the Latter-day Saint church. It does not state that homosexual activity is not a sin, it simply states that people with same-sex attraction are also loved by God and that there is a place for them at BYU. Is is very dishonest and very wrong for this reporter to insinuate that stating these things poses a risk of excommunication in the Mormon church.

  • R9

    The media continues to play into the hands of the supposed “victimhood” of the gay activists

    Probably the least justified sneery quotes in a comment this year!

  • Taylor

    A non-chruch run website which educated members use to try to answer questions about the church and gospel (FAIRlds.org) recently ran an 11 hour long podcast on the topic of homosexuality and Mormonism. http://www.fairblog.org/category/homosexuality/

    This information would have been invaluable to journalists, but unfortunately they just don’t seem to know about resources like this.

  • Taylor

    A non-chruch run website which educated members use to try to answer questions about the church and gospel (FAIRlds.org) recently ran an 11 hour long podcast on the topic of homosexuality and Mormonism.

    This information would have been invaluable to journalists, but unfortunately they just don’t seem to know about resources like this.

  • mapman

    “All of the students who choose to attend the school agree to adhere to a pretty strict honor code that governs the way they dress, forbids them from drinking alcohol, and explicitly bans students from having sex.”

    Students are actually only expected to not have sex outside of marriage.

  • Taylor

    Correction: that is 11 one hour episodes on the topic

  • Jeff

    The MSM is clearly gearing up to do opposition work against “weird” (i.e. Mormon) Mitt Romney on behalf of the Obama re-election campaign.

  • John Pack Lambert

    What Silva totally ignores is the reason why BYU has stricter restrictions on homosexual couples interacting than heterosexual ones. Ms. Silva has ignored the part of the BYU honor code that the federal government sought the hardest to dismantle.

    This is the residential living and visiting standards. Men and women are banned from living in the same dorms, off-campus apartments for single students must be clearly sex-segregated, and all single student housing, on or off campus, is under a mandate for any person of the opposite sex to leave the apartment at midnight. Also, bedrooms are off limits to members of the opposite sex, and bathrooms are only excepted if there is pressing need and it will not inconvenience people already there.

    The fact that man/woman marriage is a goal, and a commandment that Mormons are under obligation to fulfill also comes into play. However there are elaborate rules set up to avoid pre-marital sex. Yes they are at times ignored and at times fail. However these very same rules mean that those with homo-erotic feelings are constantly exposed to temptation and there is no system in place to allow limited but stoppable interaction.

    Silva totally failed to even try to see the reasons for the different rules through the eyes of those who develop them.

  • John Pack Lambert

    I have heard of the LDS Church excommunicating people for pre-marital sex. I am not sure it is common today, but it was clearly done in the 1970s. I also know there have been cases where people were excommunicated for extra-marital homosexual actions, one of them was interviewed on the NPR show “The Mormons” although he was allowed to obscure how adultery was the key charge against them.

    That said, the issue here would not have been actions at other times, but possibly the action of creating the video itself. I doubt it would lead to excommunication, but that is another story.

  • MinJae Lee

    You need to make a slight correction to one sentence:

    “All of the students who choose to attend the school agree to adhere to a pretty strict honor code that governs the way they dress, forbids them from drinking alcohol, and explicitly bans students from having sex.”

    Students are only banned from having sex with anyone other than their spouse. From what I know, sex with one’s spouse is perfectly fine and, I believe, encouraged (though not explicitly). :)

  • Dreese

    “If you’re looking for keggers, classes on post-structuralist theory, or an environment that is constantly affirming of a panoply of sexual behaviors — it shouldn’t be news that BYU is a different kind of university”

    I took classes on post-strucuralist theory at BYU.

  • mark

    Dreese,

    Whoops. Almost as soon as I typed that I had a feeling someone would say that! My point was simply that it’s a more conservative academic environment, and I think that still stands.

    Best,

    Mark

  • http://forgottencenotah.blogspot.com J. Lahondere

    I just want to add that I’ve never heard of anyone being excommunicated for simply committing adultery or homosexual activity. I’ve heard of people being disciplined for such things, but even then it was usually members who had positions of authority or who had made special covenants who sinned. It’s a difficult thing to report on because I imagine excommunication records are very private and the only first-hand knowledge we have is from excommunicated members who want to share their stories with the world. But I still think Silva was intentionally misleading when she wrote that students faced excommunication for making a video. It was like saying to the world, “This church may excommunicate these students just because they talked about being gay.”

    According to the story itself, this group meets on BYU’s campus and is even partially run by faculty members. BYU would never allow an unsanctioned group to meet on campus. It would never allow its professors to take part in an unsanctioned group. I once got in serious trouble for holding a Mystery Science Theater 3000 club meeting on the BYU campus because I didn’t get school approval first! This group advocates empathy and understanding towards gay and lesbian students. Nowhere does the video state anything contrary to the religious beliefs of the church. But according to Silva, the creation of this video could get these students excommunicated. Why? Where did she get this info? Are there any examples of this happening in the past? What about the professors who helped create the group? Would they lose their jobs? People were quoted as saying the group was well received at BYU. How could this be? Does the rest of the student body know that these students could face excommunication?

    It just makes me sick that Silva took a message that was about kindness and charity (letting gay students know that God still loves them and that they have a place at BYU and in the church) and twisted it to make it appear that it was in direct opposition to the teachings of the Latter-day Saint church–a message so wrong, in fact, that they could all be excommunicated for sharing it.

  • http://www.conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com EW

    I really like the above comment: it is completely in line with LDS teachings on the subjects at hand. Excommunication before premarital sex is only a possibility when the person in question has made special covenants with God.

    And yes, Silva’s article mislead on the nature of the message of “It gets better.”

    You wouldn’t expect accuracy when learning math from a history teacher, and neither should you expect accuracy from the media about Mormons. lds.org, mormon.org, and mormonnewsroom.org are great resources for fact-checking or your own enlightenment.

  • John Pack Lambert

    Silva ignores the fact that the church seeks to avoid labeling anyone as “LGBT”. Many leaders have on multiple occasions emphasised the clear distinction between same-gender attraction and acting on it.

    Sharing that same gender attraction is a temptation you feel is no different than sharing that you feel other urges. Saying that you feel depressed or have emotional struggles is not the type of thing that will lead to excommunication.

    For that matter, people have written books in which they accused a past president of the Church of having his predecessor killed and not been excommunicated for it. As far as I know none of the LDS Church members who have vocally denounced Proposition 8 have faced any Church discipline for doing so. Even Sonia Johnson was not excommunicated just because she repeatedly and vocally attacked the position of the leaders of the Church on the ERA. She was only excommunicated when she urged direct rejection of the missionaries because of the issue.

    Silva shows a total failure to engage with the reality of excommunications in this matter. Even if this was seen as a thing likely to prompt Church disciplinary action, which it seems more and more evident it absolutely does not qualify as, excummunication of the students involved would not happen because of this. Expulsion from BYU might occur if this was actually percieved as problematic as Silva wants to be seen, but even then it would almost certainly be a result of refusal to work with church leaders and school staff on avoiding a repeat of out of line actions, and not a direct result of these actions.

    BYU does not seek to kick out those who break every single rule. Most rules will not lead to expuslion on the first violation. Even cases where one violation may lead to temporary removal, as is generally the case with sex outside of marriage, people will generally be given a way to come back as we saw with Brandon Davies.

    There are porbalby some exemptions to this general rule, but they would probably only involve behaviors that are actually criminal.

  • Nancy

    I’m Catholic, not Mormon, but I believe that the values and dogma of a religion are NON-NEGOTIABLE. A religion that is not dogmatic is NOT a religion. If those members don’t agree with the Mormon church’s beliefs, they are free to leave and found their own sect. That’s why there are more than 30,000 “Christian” churches and sects in the US alone.

  • John Pack Lambert

    It remain less than clear that the people involved here “don’t agree with the Mormon church’s beliefs”. It is clear that Silva spoke primarily with people not at BYU who have left the Church, but these are not the people who made the film in question.