Let’s begin this with a quick history recap of past Brigham Young’s dangerous and deadly anti-gay rhetoric and “rules”.
Believe it or not before 1962 BYU was actually a “live and let live” type of college, the few lesbian and gay students who had attended though deeply closeted seemed to have no problems on campus. But on On September 12, 1962, the “live and let live” policy was officially eradicated. Spencer W. Kimball (Quorum of the 12), Mark E. Peterson (Quorum of the 12), and Ernest L. Wilkinson (BYU President) addressed the university and introduced the new university policy: “…we [do not] intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals. We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence,
Homosexuality is an ugly sin, repugnant to those who find no temptation in it, as well as to many past offenders who are seeking a way out of its clutches. All such deviations from normal, proper heterosexual relationships are not merely unnatural but wrong in the sight of God.
Spencer W Kimball
In July 1964, Spencer W. Kimball spoke to institute faculty, calling homosexuality a “malady”, “disease”, and asserted it was “curable [through] self-mastery”. On January 5, 1965, Kimball again addressed the BYU student body, equating homosexual “desires and tendencies” to “petting”, “fornication”, and “adultery.” He also professed that it was a “damnable heresy” for any homosexual person to claim, “God made [me] [this] way.”
Five gay, male students died by suicide in 1965 on campus. And unfortunately over the years more followed.
In 1967, BYU administration took control of the Honor Code and Honor Committee (now called Honor Code Office). That following year, a recorded 72 students were expelled under pretenses of “suspected homosexual activity”
In 1973 BYU’s university-sanctioned electroshock aversion therapy was reported for the first time. These were mentioned by BYU psychology professor Allen Bergin in a July 1973 New Era article, justifying the actions by claiming that homosexuals were “psychologically disturbed persons.” university-sanctioned electroshock aversion therapy was reported..
This TORTURE continued through the 1976 thesis/experiment by BYU clinical psychology professor, Max Ford McBride, which used 17 gay, male students and subjected them to “positive visual stimuli” (nude images and pornographic videos of women) with no consequence and “negative stimuli” (nude images and pornographic videos of men) accompanied by high-voltage shocks to their genitals and sensitive areas of the body, as well as induced vomiting and odor aversion. The shocks reached an intensity of 4.5mA, the equivalent of a powerful stun gun. Sources suggest this practice continued on BYU campus until 1983.
Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church didn’t stop there. Conversion Therapy Camps, spying and purging students & faculty, fighting tooth and nail against same sex marriage. It goes on and on and all of i tax free!
Fast forward to 2022 and BYU is still at it.
Almost one year after LGBT students lit up Brigham Young University’s “Y” sign in rainbow colors to show support for LGBT equality, BYU has passed new rules to discipline or arrest any students who protest against the school’s anti-LGBTQ teaching and all it’s rules in general.
The university’s new rules define a demonstration as “an event that occurs on university property that is not sponsored by the university in which two or more people gather to raise awareness about, or express a viewpoint on, an issue or cause.” This includes “marches, memorials, parades, picketing, leafletting, signature-gathering, rallies, sit-ins and counterdemonstrations,” BYU also states that student protests may not “contradict or oppose church doctrine or policy”, nor are they allowed to “deliberately attack or deride” the church or its leaders.
After all these years of Brigham Young University not only discriminating but TORTURING it’s gay students it still remains open, receives government funding and the Mormon Church tax exempt.
And everything old is new again.
