Brigham Young University Adds Explicit Ban on 'Same-Sex Romantic Behavior' to Honor Code
Brigham Young University Adds Explicit Ban on 'Same-Sex Romantic Behavior' to Honor Code
Students say Brigham Young University is policing this behavior even more than its parent church does.
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.
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...
The parents are making the decision.
Religious grounds. If you don't like it, you don't have to go there. And it's private, so no federal funds that come with strings attached.
BYU should never receive any federal funds at all, in fact, they should be paying the government taxes.
Religion is disgusting
If they don't want to have rules that our society finds acceptable they don't have any right to just exist. This isn't a person were talking about they are an education institution. A school cannot by definition have a religion because it isn't a person. I don't particularly care if the people wo made the school are themselves religious; that should not give them the right to use their new founded institution to enforce those beliefs on other people. If you want to teach people I think you should be held to certain standards, and one of those standards is that you shouldn't restrict the freedom of your students.
Having sexual morality rules is absolutely restricting their freedom. People have a right to privacy that such rules inherently violate.
Federal funds go there and even if they didn't they are still tax free.
i’m not even gay and id buttfuck a twink just to stick it to the man. then i would claim it’s not romantic because i’m not gay so how could i feel romance toward another male.
checkmate
How very Roman of you.
well it’s not quite rome, but… when in the place where romans eventually went to and then we’re like “yo let’s bury a golden book”, then it’s time to reign in the bodacious butt fuckin?
idk it’s all greek to me.
Yeah, but, like, to completion, tho?
Spilling seed on the ground is a sin. I mean, cum on. I mean, come on. And cum in.
sounds like discrimination to me
They're a private religious college, for Mormons, so discrimination on these grounds is not illegal.
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.”
Par for the course for their religious beliefs
Why the fuck would a gay person want to go to a Mormon university?
The obvious answer being that you are far more likely to be closeted if you're Mormon and it might be the only school you got a scholarship (they give very generous scholarships at BYU) to or your parents will pay for you to go to, but probably many more reasons than that
A lot of people don't know they're gay until college.
They would not.
Lots of people whose parents are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which had a shorter nickname until 2018, but even a church that self-identifies as the Universe’s one true church should not be deadnamed after transitioning) teach their children to:
- go proselytize, door-to-door, for two years after high school, during which, they must
- spend all that time being never alone, with a person of the same sex as they were assigned at birth, and they must
- never masturbate, and then
- come home and go [back] to BYU, but also
- begin having children with a spouse as soon as possible, all the while,
- being at the age of their highest libido ever and surrounded by people, each in their physical prime, and then most importantly, they must
- not discover, realize, or admit they might not be straight. It is forbidden. Like fruit of the tree of knowledge. For to do so would mean they must never ever have sex, or alternatively, that they must marry a person to whom they are not attracted, and then be encouraged to procreate with that person anyway.
THIS IS WHAT MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS ARE ACTUALLY TOLD TO BELIEVE
I mean, you say it like those are the crazy parts. Where's the magic underwear and the always popular, "we live during end times, so fuck actually helping people." thing? Or the billions of hidden wealth the church is sitting on?
The church is vile and disgusting, but not for most of the reasons you cite. That's all normal no sex before marriage and gays aren't real stuff: common amongst Christians and other sects alike.
even a church that self-identifies as the Universe’s one true church should not be deadnamed after transitioning
This cracked me the fuck up. great work.
To prepare to become a Log Cabin Republican
Fucking Mormons, man. I swear...
They’re the worst. Unfortunately, I live in Utah and deal with them daily. They’re some of the fakest, dumbest, two faced idiots on the planet. I’ve witnessed so many Mormon families disown their own children over gender identity and homosexuality. Heartbreaking and disgusting.
No, they're not fucking. Cos of the code.
They're sort of fucking.
Why are shitholes like this allowed to exist? I thought y'all had separation of church and state. Indoctrination farms are antithetical to democracy and human decency.
Edit: I see from another comment this is a private institution. Disregard.
Edit 2: apparently private indoctrination farms get federal money. Boooooo
They still get federal money though. I shouldn't have to pay for a college with my taxes that would reject me for who I am
In addition to that, which is enough of a reason on its own, the point of giving federal money to universities is to ensmarten the population in general, thereby benefiting all taxpayers. So not only is this a terrible deal for people who are directly and personally affected by this cult's bigotry, but it's a terrible deal for everyone who would otherwise benefit from being surrounded by a community of educated people instead of wingnuts.
I am sorry this is a thing.
I thought y'all had separation of church and state.
Oh, honey...
Oh don't worry. The state of Utah takes care of them just fine.
A University named after a disgusting, abhorrently racist and radical man makes derogatory decision.
"Don't worry, there's no romance, we're just fucking!"
School should not be religious. Period. Ever.
Religiosity is entrenched in the history of schooling. I think there is a place in the world for religious schooling. I just don’t think such places should receive direct governmental funding unless the religious part is optional.
Key word being history. Slavery was entrenched in the history of society and we successfully separated the two (although society still needs to work on the second order effects, sadly). Just saying it's been that way in the past is not a valid argument for why it should continue. That's basically an appeal to tradition fallacy.
I'm not sure I agree because religion in school means children get little to no sex education. I think one could certainly study world religions and such, as an academic topic, but having gone to publicly funded Catholic school I'm personally very not in favour.
NCAA should ban them from all competitions. This is straight up bigotry.
IMO, you cannot be Higher Education if you behave this way. I feel for those attending this University as now they are no longer coming from an esteemed place.
The worst thing about BYU to me (other than this sort of social bullshit) is that they have a really good archaeology program and the only reason it's so good is so they can 'prove' Joseph Smith's moronic history of the Americas was correct.
esteemed place
Do you... Not know what BYU is?
"Just turn it off, like a light switch.
Just go click!
It's a cool little Mormon trick!"The monsters have decided that this is their moment. The rest of us need to decide whether we're okay with this being their moment.
I would say just wait. This is the not the SCOTUS you want making religion decisions that will outlive us both.
Pathetic.
Good
Religion ruins everything
Mormons being homophobic? No way!