BYU HAS JESUS BY THE BALLS

So, I read Bryan's post about Breed 'Em Young University firing some poor sap because he had inappropiately used his brain. Well, surprise, surprise everyone. This isn't the first time BYU has exercised it's control over free speech and over free thought and over free expression and over freedom in general, so why get pissed off now? Bottom line is that, if you're a strict Mormon and you want to go to BYU, but you believe in some sort of free thought process, you're fucked.



Here are some example's of YBU's control over freedom:

EXPRESSION:

** In 1997, BYU banned a Rodin exhibit from campus. Speaking specifically of the famous "THE THINKER" sculpture:

"'The Thinker' does not represent the sort of activity that we believe is appropriate for the BYU setting," said BYU official Alan Wilkins. In contrasting "The Thinker" to Rodin's sculpture "The Kiss," which was withdrawn earlier this week, Wilkins said, "Nudity is not the issue here. Admitedly, nudity has its place in private and personal surroundings. But" he continued, "the administration has decided that this sculpture is inappropriate under any and all circumstances."

Even with the new ban, many parents, including Layton, have expressed doubts about allowing their children to attend the exhibit along with their school classes. "This so-called Art -- how is it any different from a Las Vegas peep show, that's what I'd like to know," said parent organizer Cynthia Rosyska. "It's just not the sort of thing I want my children exposed to. Utah valley is ripe for pornography, and I don't think we need to encourage it."




WOMEN:

**In 1993 the university terminated Professor Cecilia Konchar Farr after her third-year review. Konchar Farr is a feminist activist who worked to educate people about violence against women, who helped establish the feminist activist student club Voice on campus, and who took a public pro-Choice position, although she also said in her speech that she did not favor abortion and fully supported the LDS First Presidency's position on abortion. She also had the full support of her local ecclesiastical leaders as a faithful Mormon, worthy to participate in all Church ordinances. At first the university tried to represent Konchar Farr as an inadequate scholar and teacher, but after the appeal hearing, an agreement was reached by which both sides were to say only that there were "irreconcilable differences" between the administration and Konchar Farr. Again, a woman professor's career was damaged, and the university gave no satisfactory reason for that action.

**For several years women candidates for faculty employment at Brigham Young University have been asked this question by the academic vice president: "If a general authority [general leader of the Mormon Church] asked you not to publish your research, what would you do?" It has been suggested to the candidates that they must agree not to publish in such a case. This condition of employment undermines the position of new women faculty members at Brigham Young University. To be hired, they apparently must agree to let male ecclesiastical leaders who are not trained in their disciplines have final authority over the publication of their scholarship. They are offered no review process to determine the fairness or accuracy of the authority's request. Again, women are instructed that they must suppress their own perspectives on their own experience or research if a male authority so directs them.

**In its entire seventy-five year history, a woman faculty member has never been chosen to present BYU's distinguished faculty lecture.

GAY RIGHTS:

** Affirmation has a good little Top Ten List here.

** Electro-Shock (Aversion) Therapy Used on Gay Students

Rocky, one of the participants, said that he spent ten years negotiating his way “through the Mormon church’s torturous program for reorienting or "curing" homosexuals — trying to turn us into heterosexuals.”

His bishop told Rocky, at the age of fifteen, that he needed to take this therapy at BYU, and that it would help him into becoming a heterosexual. This is how Rocky explained the procedure: “They explained to me that they would place a heparin lock in my wrist and hook an I.V. up to that, and I would be put in a room alone with a phlethesmograph on my penis that would measure my physical arousal so that when I got an erection they would know.” At this point they would show him gay pornography while they would introduce a drug into the I.V. that produced vomiting. Next, they would show him heterosexual pornography and a euphoric drug was injected. In this manner they hoped to have him prefer women to men. It did not work. In the video the interviewer asked Rocky, since he was only fifteen at the time, if he had ever seen pornography of any kind before his session at BYU — Rocky admitted, “No.”

** Gay Students Kicked Out Of BYU:

"Ricky Escoto and Matthew Grierson, both 21, were told to withdraw from Brigham Young University or face two-semester suspensions for violating the school's honor code, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The code forbids -- but doesn't clearly define -- homosexual conduct.

"I figured as long as I remained chaste the church would welcome me," Escoto told the Tribune. He was charged last month with the infractions of receiving gifts from other men, visiting gay chat rooms on his personal computer, making out with another man in his apartment and dating at least three different men.

In mid-March Grierson was charged with kissing a man on the BYU campus and holding hands with a man IN A LOCAL MALL."



-OTHER LINKS:

http://lds-mormon.com/aaup.shtml

http://www.affirmation.org/learning/byu.shtml

http://www.lds-mormon.com/byu.shtml

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/03/stupid-is-as-stupid-does-elder-jarhead.html

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/04/byu-cancels-free-speech-forum-so-we.html

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/04/byu-hypocrisy.html