When Brigham Young University leadership reiterated a campus ban on “same-sex romantic behavior” on March 4, John Valdez wasn’t surprised. He’s the executive director of the OUT Foundation, a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ students and graduates. It was founded by three gay alumni of the Utah institution.
He and his board immediately released a statement in support of the campus’s LGBTQ community, expressing frustration about the decision.
Brigham Young University, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, previously had a student honor code that explicitly banned “all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.”
So, when that section disappeared in the updated honor code on Feb. 19, LGBTQ students celebrated. Some took the opportunity to come out or to openly share previously hidden relationships. Valdez and his team at The OUT Foundation felt “a skeptical hesitancy” about what seemed like good news, he says. “We were kind of waiting for the other ball to drop.”
And it did.
Two weeks later, Elder Paul V. Johnson, commissioner of the church educational system, wrote in a letter, “Same-sex romantic behavior cannot lead to eternal marriage and is therefore not compatible with the principles included in the Honor Code.” Brigham Young University tweeted that there had been a “miscommunication” with the updated code.
