It Gets Better at BYU?
Some students made a video about being gay at BYU. Click here to watch it.
So let's get this straight. BYU students are getting away with making gay propaganda. It includes unverified information such as, "There are over 1,800 LGBT students attending Brigham Young University." It's a technically well-made montage of 20-something-year-old BYU-clad students accompanied by sad, somber music. These students confess self-determination as some sexual identity other than heterosexual: gay lesbian, bisexual. But it doesn't stop there. Students testify that it's all perfectly okay with God. There is no talk of chastity or sexual purity. Is there any doubt that they desire permission to act out (as if they aren't already to some degree), and they are telling the world that BYU and their Church, although still oppressive, is coming right along?
Here we have some obviously damaged, rebellious, confused, misguided young people on the mere brink of real living, of adult human relationships, of responsible adult experiences, of life's biggest decisions. And they believe they have lived enough to have figured everything out about themselves and about human sexuality, including unnatural, scripturally-condemned types of it that prohibit true marriage and pro-creation, inordinately cause chronic ill-heath conditions and spread horrible life-threatening diseases?
Young latter-day saints need to know that in order to champion homosexualism (in oneself or others), one needs to abandon truth, reality, science (no gay gene), biology (there are only 2 human sexes), and core tenets of their religion. They must reject the Atonement of Jesus Christ, scriptures, prophets and apostles from all dispensations, temple covenants (yes, we are all supposed to keep even our passions and desires within the Lord's boundaries), the Family Proclamation, and countless conference talks, books, manuals, and hymns (#336 School Thy Feelings for instance). If they ever had a witness of the Holy Ghost concerning the truth of all these things, they have to deny that, too. They have to ignore the knowledge and wisdom of the ages (which they are supposed to be learning at BYU) and invent an entirely new worldview and culture for themselves.
We have some outspoken young people willing to do this for many reasons, perhaps as a form of youthful rebellion, or just to feel involved in a popular cause, or to feel superior, enlightened, comfortable with their current lusts or with friends, and popular in the eyes of the world. Do they realize what they are doing? Is championing various unnatural sexual feelings worth giving up everything else? Really? All this that is happening -- it's all in the scriptures. One wonders, have these kids read their scriptures? If they have, they don't understand them, as Nephi put it.
To the precious, misguided young people on the video, we say: You live in an upside-down world where youth and a godless trendy culture have been unwisely put on a pedestal and God's timeless goodness and wisdom are derided and disregarded. It reminds us of the silly 60's movie, Wild in the Streets, where the hippies put all the adults over 30 in camps and kept them drugged so they could run the world however they felt like running it. Youth is by nature a rash, rebellious, emotional, ignorant, prideful time of life. And the truth is, as the LDS scholar Hugh Nibley, who himself knew 20 languages, put it, none of us are very pure or brave or good or wise, even in adulthood. That's why we need God whose love and rules and principles never change. That's why we all need a Savior who offers essential divine redemption for our many weaknesses and sins and errors. That's why we need the Spirit to constantly humble and correct us.
We didn't note much discussion of the true purposes of the Godhead on the video, rather it was all about the students' purposes, their feelings, desires, sufferings, and comforts and how they conveniently have come to know that God has changed His plan to include their particular proclivities. It's true that God loves us all no matter what, a bit like a good parent unconditionally loves a naughty child, but our feelings, thoughts, motives, and actions often require purifying, changing, and improving. Not on the video.
That's why no one should give this video any credence. These are culturally-indoctrinated and emboldened young people who have, in their inexperienced youth, rashly and wholeheartedly embraced politicized, pop-culture sexual identities despite God's boundaries for sexuality in heart, mind, and body. One should wonder how and where they got these ideas cemented; one girl on the video admitted she turned to the internet where her wayward sexual feelings were validated and welcomed. The internet. Not the scriptures. Not the Spirit. The internet. Enough said. These young people need to know they have rejected the accumulated wisdom of the ages and summarily dismissed the spiritually-demanding Atonement of Jesus Christ. They have ignored and disparaged the availability of cutting-edge, professional, gospel-based therapy and the possibility of reorienting to heterosexuality and a normal life. They also obviously reject their agency, stewardship, and obligation to strive against sinfulness in all its forms to the end of mortality. They are so far conditioned into today's worldly ways that the above glorious gifts are things which they seem to know and care nothing about.
Think about it. Boundaries. Wisdom. Christ. Hope. Help. Health. Normalcy. Agency. Obligation. Stewardship. Progression. Nope, not interested.
It gets better at BYU? We wonder if on these critical and essential topics it could get any worse.
--Stephen and Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty
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