Rant of the Day

[Katya]

Oh just relationship problems that have technically always existed are now becoming much more obvious with a relationship, depression, and wedding planning being in the way.

I'm sorry. That's rough.

[Zedability]

http://gaymormonguy.blogspot.com/2016/0 ... s.html?m=1

This is majorly pissing me off and completely distracting me from my final paper. With all the controversy about LGBT and the Big 12, tons of people are insisting that LGBT students are held to the exact same standard as straight students. No they f***ing aren't.

What do you guys think the consequences would be if I wrote a blog post voicing disagreement with this policy, followed by a bunch of photos of me technically violating the Honor Code (arms around mission companions, etc), and closing with an encouragement to share the post, contact the HCO, or tweet a similar picture of themselves with #honorcodeviolation?

I totally want to do it, but any sort of heavy-handed response could mess with my student visa and my green card application just barely got sent in.

[Cognoscente]

As much as I would love and support that... I don't think it's wise. As long as you're an active student, you have too much to lose. The HCO is too powerful, too arbitrary, and has way too little accountability for student-led protests to make any difference. If the freaking rape reporting scandal a few months ago couldn't effect genuine change and contrition from the BYU Secret Police... I don't know what could.

Keep your head down, power through the rest of your school, and get somewhere where they don't have the ability to destroy your next five years. Then, protest long and loud.

[Cognoscente]

Zed, here's the story of a guy who participated in the beard ban protest a couple of years ago. Fair warning, it's posted in /r/exmormon and there's swearing, but at the time he was mostly just a liberal progressive mormon, not an exmo. An acquaintance from his mission turned him in solely on the basis of his beard and some FB posts supporting some university reforms (this was during the accreditation renewal thing). Just as he was about to graduate and move away, they made getting his degree a humiliating nightmare for months.

Be honest, but be careful.

[Zedability]

If I had a nickel for every time I thought to myself "surely the HCO wouldn't get someone in trouble for THAT...", followed by being proved wrong, I could afford tuition to go to a different school.

Ugh the strategy of shutting down criticism of draconian standards with *more draconian standards* is just such bullshit.

[Cognoscente]

During the last Reunion week I compared the HCO to the Stasi and was told off for the simplistic comparison.

I think the analogy is valid.

[Zedability]

Wikipedia: "One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents"

Yep.

[Cognoscente]

And at a place of higher learning, where we should be the most free to express ideas and question assumptions! Yeah, there are liberal pockets (the Board, for sure), but you never know if there's someone in your student ward reading or listening that will decide they need to save your soul if you take pro-LGBT positions too loudly.

[TheBlackSheep]

Don't do it. The HC is evil. Another person (straight woman) I know just had a terrible experience. Get through school and so your visa doesn't depend on BYU and then do it, but not until your diploma is in your hand. Learned that one the hard way.

[TheBlackSheep]

You could get a non-student to do it though.

[Zedability]

I just have this glorious vision of a bunch of people posting the most innocent pictures with #honorcodeviolation hahaha.

[TheBlackSheep]

I LOVE the idea.

[Zedability]

I have a ton of mission pictures that would work great for it.

[Portia]

Just saw the head of P.R. at BYU referred to as a "spinsteress" which I think enrages me even more than anything upthread.

[Genuine Article]

Just saw the head of P.R. at BYU referred to as a "spinsteress" which I think enrages me even more than anything upthread.

That word sounds like she sews dresses for spinsters.

[Cognoscente]

Seriously. "Spinster" is already a feminine word. Why would it need an "-ess" suffix? That just implies that "spinster" refers to a man.

Is this a hypercorrection, or simply a malapropism from someone trying to be cute? What's next, "widowess?" "Matroness?" "Seamstressess?"

Wait, if a male seamstress is a seamster, does that make a female teamster a teamstress?

[Genuine Article]

Wait, if a male seamstress is a seamster, does that make a female teamster a teamstress?

I don't know if there are any teamsteresses. I assume most women lack the necessary combination of "surly and lazy."

[Cognoscente]

EDIT: In case you don't know the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zn0Vw-RcI4

[yayfulness]

Zed, here's the story of a guy who participated in the beard ban protest a couple of years ago. Fair warning, it's posted in /r/exmormon and there's swearing, but at the time he was mostly just a liberal progressive mormon, not an exmo. An acquaintance from his mission turned him in solely on the basis of his beard and some FB posts supporting some university reforms (this was during the accreditation renewal thing). Just as he was about to graduate and move away, they made getting his degree a humiliating nightmare for months.

Be honest, but be careful.

Hooooooooooooooly...

It's like their literal goal is to alienate people so thoroughly from the Church that even a personal appearance from God would have a hard time convincing them to go back.

[Portia]

I'm not only bothered by the "spinsteress" attack on etymological grounds. I think that it's so very obvious that single, childless women are those who are least bound by the double shift and unequal expectations, so no shit that they're more likely to advance in academia, much less MORMON ACADEMIA.

Attacking the messenger, who has literally no institutional power to change policy (the Board of the university is literally tied to the Priesthood, and women can only access that institutional power through marriage in a Mormon framework) is such a garbage argument. The misogyny among ex-Mormons gets old.