Students say Brigham Young University is policing this behavior even more than its parent church does.
Brigham Young University administrators have put an explicit ban on “same-sex romantic behavior” in the school’s Honor Code, and students say it goes farther than the Mormon Church’s policy on same-sex relationships.
In 2020, BYU deleted a ban on “homosexual behavior” from the Honor Code, leading some LGBTQ+ students to celebrate. But soon afterward, the Church Educational System, which governs all the BYU campuses, clarified that the deletion didn’t mean “same-sex romantic behavior” was acceptable. Last month, it added the language prohibiting “same-sex romantic behavior” to the code.
“Though the ban had never really lost its effect, for some students the official restoration of it still felt like a gut punch,” Religion News Service reports.
The Honor Code tells BYU students to live “a chaste and virtuous life, including abstaining from sexual relations outside marriage between a man and a woman.” With the new language, it notes that “living a chaste and virtuous life also includes abstaining from same-sex romantic behavior.”
BYU is affiliated with the Mormon Church (officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), which opposes same-sex relationships. The church won’t perform same-sex marriages and expects the faithful to refrain from sexual activity with members of the same gender. It also opposes gender transition, and church leaders have said that LGBTQ+ activism comes from Satan.
But some BYU students say certain LDS congregations look the other way when a member is dating someone of the same sex, while the college is policing dating relationships.
“Depending on where you are, who your religious leaders are, you can actually date people of the same sex with very little church repercussions,” BYU student Gracee Purcell, president of the RaYnbow Collective, a group for the college’s queer students and alumni, told Religion News Service. “At BYU, that usually gray line within the church is a hard line. Anything that they deem homosexual behavior, or same-sex romantic behavior, is not allowed.”
That “romantic behavior” could include dating, holding hands, or kissing. If a student engages in any of these, “as in years past, each situation will be handled on a case-by-case basis to help each student feel the love of the Savior and to encourage them to live their gospel covenants and university/college commitments,” says a list of BYU’s answers to frequently asked questions.
LGBTQ+ groups for BYU students and alums opposed the prohibition but said at least the school is being up front about its attitudes. “I’m just glad people can now finally see explicitly what’s happening,” Evelyn Telford, a vice president of Understanding Sexuality, Gender & Allyship, told the news service. “There’s no way to get around it that they are openly being discriminatory to queer students.” But it will make queer students feel more isolated and under scrutiny by others, she said.
The LGBTQ+ groups will continue doing their work, and the RaYnbow Collective will hold its annual off-campus Back-to-School Pride event in Provo, Utah, September 16. Provo is home to BYU’s main campus, and the school also has campuses in Idaho and Hawaii. Ensign College in Salt Lake City is governed by the Church Educational System as well.
Despite BYU’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies, queer students come to the university because of academics, family connections, or other reasons, Telford said. And some may not recognize they’re queer until they’re in college. That was the case with her, she said.
“It’s such a personal decision to be at BYU, and your sexuality shouldn’t mean you don’t deserve a place there,” she told Religion News Service.
Purcell added, “The lack of representation and the increase in religious and societal pressures won’t stop queer students from coming. But it will hurt them.”
I still don't see how it's legal for an accredited university to have rules prohibiting sexual activity of their students
Want to be a religious school? That's fine, but you won't be accredited to teach any Gen Ed classes. Have your catholic pastor school, or your rabbinical school, that's fine. But you won't be making those into general education colleges.
https://bycommonconsent.com/2022/03/04/how-much-federal-money-do-the-byus-receive/
Private, less about $275,000,000 in federal funds, sure.
I want a refund on my taxes. I shouldn't have to pay for this
Yeah, the anti-tax people kind of have a point sometimes.
A lot of taxpayer money gets funneled to bullshit.
I have absolutely no problem with tax dollars going to towards the Pell Grant. Giving money to kids for an education is awesome.
I have a big problem when that money is for an education at a private religious school that openly and actively discriminates against protected classes.
I mean, we should just do what has been proven to work around the world and make college free to everyone who can get in.
But what about the university share holders?? the ones that are already fabulously wealthy??
Unfortunately, no one believes they are wealthy. Some believe they are comfortable. All believe they could have more.
We should remind them. With pick-axes, torches, and bullets.
Well, that's just lunacy. How would private schools embezzle federal funds?
This part is a slippery slope that I don’t have a pithy hot take for. I wish I did.
I mean, do I really want to wait from 1776 or 1791 until 2013¹ for the state to mandate that all marriage license-issuing court clerks be required to issue marriage licenses to any unmarried pair of adults, even if the pair was assigned the same gender at birth?
Lots of Americans still resent that those clerks are funded by their tax dollars.
Get in line, I still want my money from the 2nd Iraq war. I was too young to vote against it and protested it. Yet to see my refund.
Hmm. I'm not sure if student aid should be counted there or not. Grants to the university itself should absolutely be forbidden, but if a student chooses to go there, should we deny them assistance? Maybe.
I feel, generally, that tax dollars should not go to private companies or institutions.
Lots of things people think are public are legally private. Most transit agencies, the people who print the US dollar, some state universities… etc.
Usually the bylaws of these private entities are formed to stipulate that the governor or someone picks the equivalent of the CEO.
If you're funded by tax dollars, you should be a public entity.
That way the work still gets done, but money isn't being wasted maximizing profit for owners.
I know. And I think that is a failed model. Of course if your goal is to make certain people rich it's a very successful model.
I’ve been parts of these discussions. There are certain things governments just can’t do the way they are currently setup.
An easy example I’m familiar with; some States’ rules are onerous enough that you couldn’t operate a transit system under them.
Sounds like a "problem" created by people with an interest in the state not performing that role. There are many ways to privatize a state asset.
No, it is an organizational problem. It is functionally the reason that startups tend to stagnate when bought out… even if the host company ‘leaves them alone’.
A really simple example for transit: due to past corruption and or pay-to-play issues, most states (especially Democrat states) have pretty firm procurement guidelines. There are exceptions for emergencies, but the usually require the Governor’s office to chime in and aren’t intended for day-to-day items. A threshold of $100k isn’t unheard of for a forced sole-source procurement. I don’t want to waive that rule for government in general, but a transit agency that you want to actually meets service needs to not be waiting on the Governor to do so.
That specific issue is obviously solvable with a rule change… the meta issue is that State governments tends to create rules/laws without understanding how it breaks things
I think one must be very credulous of the motives of politicians to accept that self-imposed state paralysis was an attempt to fight corruption and not an attempt to make the case for privatization more compelling. Neoliberal dismantling of state capacity has been a bipartisan goal for the last 50 years.
Who do you think makes money off of these ‘private’ transit agencies?
Student aid should count. That's money that could go to students seeking education in state schools, not religious schooling. This is just like bullshit voucher programs stealing tax payer funded school funds to be sent to religious schools.
If kids or their parents want to go to church school, they can pay for it themselves. Not the tax payer.
Accrediting agencies in the US are privately operated, too. There's a layer of independent oversight between the Department of Education and the schools themselves.
Whether that's good or bad is far beyond my knowledge, but that's how it's legal. It's just one private organization giving a thumbs up to another private organization.
It's also not a great marketing move.
"Come to university but don't sleep around", na mate I'll go somewhere else.
Finding out who you are is the whole point of going to university, otherwise you might as well take an online course.
Idiots.
They don't want kids coming of age. They're a religion. That's stupidly normal for religions, to keep children as innocent as literal children for as long as possible. The only coming of age is supposed to happen on the honeymoon, because you know, that's not dangerously emotionally underdeveloped territory at all and totally never results in horribly incompatible people ending up forced together...