Facism Right Here in Happy Valley (or God...The Ultimate Power Tool)

And no, the similarities here are not just on the surface. BYU really does control-- down to the minutest detail-- the way its subjects choose to lvie their lives during their sojourn here. Further, this university presents the frightening reality of what life must be like in a so-called theocracy. Here anything the administration says is the Word of God and therefore must be adhered to with exactness, without unrighteous questioning or attempts to change what seems to be unfair. We Mormons are taught to submit almost unquestioningly to authority, accepting as God's Most Holy Will edicts such as: Long Sideburns Are Bad, Protests Are Bad, Listening to Dissenting Opinions is Bad, Short Skirts Are Bad, Showing Cleavage is Bad, Drinking Coffee Is Bad, Being Gay is Bad, Swear Words Are Bad. This all comes from God, reasons the student body, and God knows everything, so we shouldn't question it. Though we claim "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve" as their motto, the real theme here at BYU is, to paraphrase my main man Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ours is not to do or die.....ours is but to do or be damned to hell for all of eternity." Dissenting opinions are regarded as unrighteous and wrong; the holders of said dissenting opinions regarded as sinful and proud.

During the past month I have witnessed two frustrating and frightening aspects of this theocratic way of running a campus:

1) The BYUSA Scandal. After the third year in a row of having major BYUSA candidates disqualified for silly "campaign violations" (for example, this year--and I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP--the disqualified candidates found a bargain at a local copyshop and made lots of cheap flyers), BYUSA employee Todd Hendricks had the gall to write into the campus newspaper, The Daily Universe, explaining the structure of the BYUSA elections, and politely and intelligently pointing out that the illusion of campus-wide elections is merely that: an illusion. An internal committee ultimately tweaks things to go their way. But apparently BYU doesn't feel that it's students can handle the truth: Mr. Hencricks was immediately fired for his "disloyalty." He wasn't even given the requisite verbal and written warnings that the Created-By-God employment manual here at the Y prescribes. Further--AND I SWEAR UPON ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP-- BYUSA offered to cut him a deal for keeping quiet about the whole thing: "We'll give you a month of severance pay, insurance to cover the birth of your upcoming child, and put this on your record as a 'mutual resignation' if you provide us with a list of anyone you've already spoken to about this and if you swear to keep it quiet heretohenceforeandforever." Henricks obviously did NOT go for this manipulative little bargain, and the whole thing, thank God Almighty, did cause some amount of uproar among the student body. A protest was even held in which students protested the fear and terror with which BYU seems to enjoy ruling. It's not right, the protesters stated, that students and faculty can't freely express opinions (AND FACTS) without fearing serious repercussions.

And do you want to know how many faculty members showed up to participate in the protest?

One. And he, as I understand it, is already comfortably wealthy without BYU dishing out its monthly paycheck.

(Also, a note about the crapped-up elections: Upon further investigation, I've discovered that it turns out that BYUSA is not a student government anyway; it's a "service organization." I'm sure the administration has cracked a wry smile or two at the ignorance of its little student peasantry: to think the students would even for a moment entertain the notion they had a voice in the way things are run around here. How cute!)

There was, of course, support for the administration's actions. Many people argued that in pointing out BYU's flaws, Hendricks was actually (dear God) criticizing the Church. It was almost as though he had just given Jesus a wedgie. Of course he had to be dismissed! A person can't get away with such blatant disrespect! Another opinion writer here on campus remarked that BYU had every right to fire Todd Hendricks. After all, he said, Todd was essentially a malfunctioning part in a well-oiled machine. He needed to be removed or replaced.

(It should also be noted here before I continue that BYU actually has a no-protest policy. The protesters had to gain written permission before they were allowed to demonstrate, and that permission was granted mostly, I believe, because the protest was going to be held whether the Lord Protectorate of BYU allowed it or not, and BYU didn't want to hurt its image any more than it already had by openly hauling students off campus.)

2) This week Soulforce, a Gay/Lesbian/Transgender rights advocacy group came to visit campus. Before they showed up, BYU laid down the law: no protests, no speeches, no fliers. BYU also made sure that An Important Authority Figure addressed the students with a plea to be kind and respectful to members of this visiting group. Sure enough, this plea (more or less from The Very Voice of God) was effective and the visitors were treated with a relative amount of respect and courtesy. They were even allowed to perform a demonstration on a corner of campus in which they weren't escorted off campus and fined until after they were allowed to read the biography of a gay LDS person who had committed suicide, lay a lily on the ground, and lay down themselves. I was glad BYU allowed them to speak before expressing their disapproval. That was actually a big step for them.

But my dish with this situation is that, while people listened, very few actually listened. There was a pleasant attitude of "We're agreeing to peacefully disagree" but no attempts at actually applying the words of the soulforce protesters at all toward an altered change in opinion toward homosexuality. And why is this? It's because the thinking on this topic has already been done. The church has a "policy" about homosexual church members and it even openly supported that stupid "Marriage Defining" constitutional amendment. We here at BYU have the advantage of already knowing all the answers. So we can smile politely at the ignorant, Book-of-Mormonless gay sinners, and listen to what they have to say, but we don't need to actually think about what they're saying. We don't have to think. We know.

Which is the entire issue to begin with. Yesterday a line of sixty people stood at the foot of campus holding a lily in their hand. Everyone there represented an LDS person who took their own life because the absolutist attitudes of the church made living life too difficult for someone with a homosexual orientation. I personally have read endless stories about good LDS kids striving to correct their "sinful" dispositions. They have attended BYU and served full-time missions. They have suffered through endless therapy (sometimes shock therapy) sessions, long nights of desperate petitionary prayer, heterosexual dating and marital relationships. They have felt alone, they have felt bad, they have lost friendships and relationships with family members, they have struggled to connect with a God who, in their minds, made this them way and then told them to pretend he hadn't. I guess it's being familiar with stories like these that make my blood rise a little when I read opinions like these:

"Students' reactions to the Equality Riders proves wrong their claim that 'Latter-day Saints' policies are killing gay people.' As far as we know, every one of them left here alive and unharmed, both physically and emotionally. And if that wasn't the case, any type of pain was self-inflicted."

You're right, you assface. BYU is not lining up the homosexuals and aiming a firing squad at them. It's more subtle than that and it's probably not even intentional-- but the fact is, it happens anyway. And yes, it's true: the hand pulling the trigger is not that of the prophet. The hand pulling the trigger is that of an exhausted RM boy tired of being filled with irrefutable self-loathing every time he feels attracted to another man, tired of being lonely and isolated, tired of not being what God Himself has said he should be, tired of not being able to fulfill his eternally important duties as a husband and a father. And it's the voice of the prophet that told him these things.