Introduction and Guest Backgrounds

John Dehlin [00:00:16] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is January 24, 2022, and. And we have a very important story that we're covering today on Mormon Stories Podcast. We are committed to covering current events that relate to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its members and former members. And a really big story that hit the news recently is the federal investigation into Brigham Young University.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] And. And specifically, we're talking about the way that the Mormon Church, through BYU Provo, BYU Idaho, BYU Hawaii, the way the Mormon Church deals with its LGBTQ+ students. This story has been covered very well in the Salt Lake Tribune. Unfortunately, that article is behind a paywall. It's also been covered in the Desert News, the Washington Times, and on some of the major news media outlets. But it has to do with what are, you know, active believing Mormons who are LGBTQ BYU students? What are they allowed to do? Are they allowed to be out in the public square? Are they allowed to hold hands? Are they allowed to date like other straight students?

John Dehlin [00:01:37] Are they allowed to light up BYU's why in Provo and just show love and support? Are they allowed to carry around rainbow umbrellas or wear rainbow pins? And more importantly, you know, will. Will, you know, does. Do BYU. Do the BYU's, are they entitled to federal funding if they're violating the rights of their LGBTQ students, if they're treating them unfairly?

John Dehlin [00:02:06] And should BYU be accredited as a major national university, or should it lose its accreditation as a result of its treatment of LGBTQ students? And then finally, you know, to what extent is the Mormon Church and BYU going to continue to experience, you know, what some might say is a black eye or a drop in enrollment, you know, poor reputation as it relates to its sort of its treatment of LGBTQ students? So those are some of the questions we are going to be dealing with today. And we're. We're super grateful to Gerardo Samano, one of my partners in goodness and righteousness. Gerardo has kind of been the producer for this episode. We want to welcome you as always, Gerardo, thanks for joining us.

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:55] Thank you, John. I'm really excited for this episode. As some of our listeners know, this is a subject that I'm really passionate about. So really, really excited.

John Dehlin [00:03:08] All right. Yeah. Thanks for all the work of making this happen, Gerardo. And we also have with us, I believe, returning to Mormon Stories podcast, at least one, if not both of them. The first is Paul Southwick. Paul, do you mind just introducing yourself really briefly to our audience.

Paul Southwick [00:03:27] Sure, thanks for having me. My name is Paul Southwick. I'm the director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, and we work to empower queer, trans and non binary students who experience discrimination on religious campuses like byu. And one of the primary ways we do that is through litigation and through filing Title IX complaints. So this topic is right up our alley.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] All right. Yeah, we're really grateful. And this is not your first appearance on Mormon Stories, correct, Paul?

Paul Southwick [00:03:56] That's right. I appeared several months back when we followed filed a class action Title 9 lawsuit against the U.S. department of Education on behalf of what is now over 40 LGBTQ students, including three of whom go to BYU institutions.

John Dehlin [00:04:15] All right, well, thanks for. For joining us again, Paul and Joe Baxter. Please also let us know a little bit about yourself. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast, Joe.

Joe Bax [00:04:27] Yeah, it's good to see everyone again. My name is Joe Baxter. I'm an attorney working with the Religious Exemption Accountability Project alongside Paul. I received my law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland. I focused on the intersection of LGBTQ rights with religious liberty. I began working with REAP in May of this last year. I also have a little bit of personal connection with this. I grew up in a Mormon family. I attended Brigham Young University, Idaho, was a Mormon missionary to Chile. In Chile. So I have a little bit of background on the. On the LDS aspect of this as well. So really excited to be here. Thanks, Gerardo, and for inviting us on, and John, appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:05:15] My pleasure. Okay, so there's a lot to get into today. We want to try and be as. As tight as possible so that we can maximize the number of people that really pay attention and connect with what's going on. Let's just start not in the legal level, but let's just start at the human level. And maybe, Paul, you can start and then, Joe, you can add to it.

BYU Under Federal Investigation for LGBTQ Treatment

John Dehlin [00:05:41] BYU is under federal investigation for the way it treats LGBTQ students. So if you can humanize this, Paul, and just tell us you know what it is. And by the way, about half of our viewers and listeners on Mormon Stories podcast have never been Mormon, so a lot of them don't even know what BYU is or how LGBTQ students are being treated. So what I kind of want to do before we kind of get into Title 9 and the legal stuff and. And the accreditation and the complaints is just to kind of explain at a human level what's going on with. With BYU LGBTQ students, why it's not right and why.

John Dehlin [00:06:20] Why the federal government, the US Federal government, the Department of Education, would actually be investigating BYU because of the complaints. So, Paul, can you start with that description? And then Joe will have you add some color to that?

Paul Southwick [00:06:35] Well, a lot of LGBTQ young people end up at ra religious colleges like byu. At a place like byu, the religion permeates the college experience. And so that might mean that you have chapel, mandatory chapel sessions that you attend, that there is prayer in some or all of your classes. It also usually means that there is an honor code that significantly regulates how people are allowed to look, act, what they can say, what they can advocate for.

Paul Southwick [00:07:09] So I was one of these, a closeted LGBT student at a religious college. When I was a young. When I was younger, and it was a really scary place to be, I constantly received messages that I was evil, that I was perverted. And I heard that from speakers from professors and eventually was sent to conversion therapy. And these are the kinds of things that continue to persist today in various forms. And so what we're talking about when we're looking at LGBTQ students on these campuses is really vulnerable 18, 19, 20 year olds who, for the first time, might be exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity, but they constantly have to watch their backs, and that takes an extreme emotional toll.

Joe Bax [00:08:05] And as kind of a follow up to that, I was just talking to one of our students. Two of our investigations just started to be two of our title and complaints of our students just started to be investigated. And when I had a phone call with the student to talk to him and tell him that his complaint was being investigated, he broke down crying because he said, I felt like I have deserved this. This whole time, they've told me that I'm broken, that I'm wrong, and I felt like I deserve to be discriminated against. And the fact that you guys are working to fight this discrimination, that the OCR is opening up an investigative complaint, it validates all of this pain that I've been feeling.

Joe Bax [00:08:51] It says that you didn't deserve this. Maybe something was happening to you that was wrong. It's not that you were bad. And so this whole. It's very difficult for students on these campuses because they're being told continually, over and over and over again that they're wicked or they're bad or they're broken, and that's just simply not true.

Gerardo Sumano [00:09:15] Yeah, there's. So I. I prepared three questions, which are the ones that I feel like you guys, and we do as well, always seem to come up when we're talking about this issue of the honor Code, BYU and LGBTQ students. And we would love for you, for you to address them. I think that's where we can start with this. And so the first one is the argument is that there is an honor code. They agreed to it before, and even attending the university, they signed it. So students know what they're signing up for when they go to these religious universities like byu. What. What would be your response for people who say. Who claim this?

Paul Southwick [00:10:05] Right. So essentially, that argument boils down to, you know, what, you knew what you were getting into, so you deserve the treatment that you got. And that really is a response that puts the blame on a young person who probably at the time they were applying to college, they didn't want to be gay or they didn't want to be trans. They were trying to conform to the image that they were taught by their families and their religious communities was the correct right image for them. And so, yes, many of them willingly signed on to the honor code in the hopes that it would help them live what they thought was a righteous life.

Paul Southwick [00:10:45] But then when you get there and you realize maybe for the first time, that what you thought you were signing up for turns out to be something far more painful, far more scary, and very unsafe for you. And so at that point where a student's safety is on the line, we shouldn't be blaming them for decisions that they or their families made for them when they were 17 years old.

John Dehlin [00:11:16] Is it okay really quickly if I jump in and just provide a little color for. For people that don't. Maybe for people who don't have the Mormon background? I'll just say the honor code, as I recall, is, you know, you go to your senior in high school, you go to your bishop, and you say, hey, Bishop, I. I Mormon bishop, I want to go to byu. And he says, okay, to go to byu, you got to fill out this honor. You got to sign this honor code where you promise to not engage in any sexual activity while at BYU other than maybe hand holding or kissing.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] And I think. I think it would be clear from everyone's perspective that that would only be heterosexual hand holding or kissing, but that any other sexual activity, gay or straight. Well, straight for sure, beyond kissing or hand holding, would be forbidden and would be grounds for you to be removed. You're also going to commit to not drinking tea, to not drinking coffee, to not drinking alcohol, to not doing drugs, to not lying or stealing or cheating, and to rat out or, you know, turn in anyone that you know of who is also violating the honor code. So, and then I don't think a gay student who's talking to their Mormon bishop.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] I don't even think it would be on the table their senior year in high school to be thinking about whether they'd be allowed to hold hands or kiss or date a gay, a gay student while at byu. Now Gerardo, you've actually lived this. So why don't you tell me if I've painted the right picture of the honor code for those who just don't have the context.

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:54] No, that's a great explanation. Right. Like just my personal experience was I decided to go to BYU Idaho right after I came back with from my mission. I knew I was gay or I had same sex attraction, but I was super committed to live, you know, like the, the Mormon lifestyle and, and, and to push through it. But like Paul said, I never imagined how hard it would be. What other experiences we're going to come up with come up. Right, right. Like during my four years at the university.

John Dehlin [00:13:27] And Gerardo, tell us what it's like really quickly. So you're, you're a Mormon, faithful Mormon kid. You go to BYU or BYU Idaho, you want to be straight. You want the gay to go away. You made this promise. What, what's, what's really hard about being a BYU student and a gay BYU student once you're there and once you start experiencing everything that's around you, what's super hard about that? About not dating someone of the same sex in your case? What, what makes it super hard? Excruciating?

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:02] Well, you just feel lonely, feel depressed. I knew so many people who like, you know, tried to celibate route and they were always in on antidepressants anxiety. Many of us feel like we can't come out because BYU Idaho is super conservative. What people are going to say? Usually when students come out, they, their bishops will have kind of like a spotlight on them and be checking them constantly on everything. They do have like super demanding callings just so bishops can make sure that they have them on track. And you know, even if, if a BYU is openly gay and saying that they're committed to, to live the, the church's standards, like they will be really grilled into.

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:54] Like, you know, we have. We. You need to show us that that's true. And so yeah, it's, it's just a really, really hard experience. Many students experience discrimination from other students. There's classes where we were, there's demeaning stuff said about homosexuals or people who have same gender attraction.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:18] It's just it's just a really hard experience. And that, like Paul said, you. You don't usually account when you're 17, signing your papers to go to BYU or coming back from remission, when you have, like a super strong testimony, you

John Dehlin [00:15:32] know, it's gotta be. It's gotta also be super hard that the Mormon Church is always emphasizing dating and marriage. And if you can't date some of the opposite sex because you're literally not attracted to them or you experience aversion towards them and then everybody else is dating, you're just sitting home alone or with your friends, it's. That's got to be a really sad and difficult thing to just watch around you as you're just feeling lonelier and lonelier and lonelier. Is that right, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:03] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think this takes us to the next argument that I wanted to address, which is that many. Which many people give, you know, that. That us students who are lgbt, we have thousands of other universities that we could go. We could always leave if we wanted. Like, no one's forcing us to be at these universities with this honor codes.

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:30] Well, Paul can touch a little bit on this, but preliminary, just at least for byu, it's really hard. And byu, Idaho, it's really hard to transfer your credits out. Sometimes you're like a year or two years in the university when you find out that you. Or you accept yourself that you're. You're gay. Because many times, you know, we grew up with internal homo. Internalized homophobia, which doesn't allow us to accept ourselves. And it happens later down the road. But, Paul, what. What other ideas you have around this argument that, you know, these students have many other options that they could. That they could choose.

John Dehlin [00:17:10] We should get Joe in after Paul, too,

Paul Southwick [00:17:14] right? Well, first of all, a lot of students feel like they really don't have much of a choice. And to begin with, because it's kind of like your. Your whole. Growing up, you thought, I'm going to be a BYU student. And you kind of have tunnel vision. Now, once you're there and if you do come out or you are struggling by being closeted there, you might think about, okay, how can I leave? How can I get out of here? And then a lot of difficulties arise. Like Gerardo mentioned, transferring credits can be difficult.

Paul Southwick [00:17:47] But also a place like BYU is very affordable for students. And if a student is to leave byu, it might be financially, you know, financially impossible or very difficult for them to transfer to another institution. Also, places like BYU and other religious colleges sometimes they have like, the best departments or the best programs for a certain area. And so a student might actually be sacrificing the quality of their education by having to go to a program or a department that's not quite as good. And also, big part of college is the social aspect. And you make friendships and you make relationships with people while you're there on campus.

Paul Southwick [00:18:30] And it's a pretty hard thing to do, especially if you're closeted and Mormon, to then think about leaving those friendships and going into complete, completely different world.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:40] Yeah.

Joe Bax [00:18:41] Yeah. And I think if some of your listeners are maybe struggling to kind of understand the mindset of these students. I don't know if either of you saw this, but last week David Archuleta posted this really brave, beautiful post video to instagram where for 45 minutes, he talks about all of the messages he received as a kid about how his life was supposed to be, how he was supposed to grow up and marry a woman, and how he tried so hard to live that life that they told him he had to live. And you can watch the pain on his face as he talks about trying to reconcile who he was with who he was being pressured to be.

Joe Bax [00:19:27] And he was fighting. I mean, the, it took him to really, really, really dark places emotionally because, you know, he was, he was trying to exist in a complete, you know, suppress so many things. It was really harmful for him mentally. It was really painful for him mentally. And I think it's. This is what these students go, go through. They grow up in these environments where they've been told that, you know, you go to the BYU's, you go, you get married, this is the way you have to do it. This is what God wants you to do. So, of course they're going to end up there.

Joe Bax [00:19:58] And, you know, they've suppressed all of these feelings and are trying really hard, but it's really painful. It's a really difficult place to be. And I think kind of seeing that helps you put yourself in their shoes and kind of understand on a level of empathy what these students are going through and, and why you shouldn't blame them. It's kind of victim blaming to say, like, why did you decide to go there?

Joe Bax [00:20:21] And, you know, you wouldn't say this to any other group. We wouldn't say, like, oh, you shouldn't belong here. These, these are schools that receive government funds. Everybody should be welcome to go there. We shouldn't say, like, oh, you know, you belong. Go to a different school. No, schools should be inclusive. It's, it's on the burden on the schools to make sure that they're inclusive.

Gerardo Sumano [00:20:41] Yeah, I think we can John, we can start addressing. Well, there's one last argument and, and Joe, you touched on it, but this argument that that the government is overreaching on a private institution and that particularly a religious one and the government shouldn't be interfering. But like Joe responded beautifully to this, which is this universities are getting millions of doll taxpayer money every year, you know, and, and that they should be held accountable for this discrimination.

John Dehlin [00:21:18] While you're mentioning that, Gerardo, maybe it's time to show kind of this the first couple slides. Do you want to explain what these slides are? Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:21:25] Yeah. So this is from.gov website, it's called usaspending.gov and this page is called Explore the federal investment in your alma mater. And it has how much money this universities all around the US received during the year of 2018. And this is BYU Provo. And according to the report, it says that BYU Provo received at least $118

Joe Bax [00:21:54] million

Gerardo Sumano [00:21:56] in the year of 2018. And then the next slide is a screenshot of BYU Idaho. We received $133 million on federal aid.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] That's a lot of dollars. Yeah, that's a, that's a tenth of a bill that was more than a tenth of a billion dollars in one year.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:17] Right?

John Dehlin [00:22:18] It's a lot, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so Paul and Joe, what can you guys tell us about why, why the, why why BYU's in the Mormon Church are under federal investigation? That sounds so serious, right? Why are they under federal investigation? Then we can dive into Title 9 and the history of that. But just for somebody who doesn't want to hear the legalese. Why, why are they under investigation? Paul, maybe go first.

Paul Southwick [00:22:47] Sure.

Joe Bax [00:22:47] John.

Paul Southwick [00:22:47] Well, you're completely right. It is a very serious matter for the federal government Office of Civil Rights to open up an investigation. And why they are being investigated is it doesn't have to do with the specific treatment of any individual student. This is really significant. It actually has to do with the investigation is focused on the honor code policies as applied to all LGBTQ students. So they're not just investigating. For example, if one student experienced a homophobic conduct and reported that they're actually doing a system wide BYU wide evaluation of those anti LGBT policies and the effects that those have on LGBTQ students and whether or not BYU is now out of compliance with federal law.

John Dehlin [00:23:37] And Paul, how has this happened before? Is this kind of new? Is this groundbreaking like or does this happen every Day.

Paul Southwick [00:23:46] No, this is. This is pretty rare that the federal government will open an investigation with respect to a religious institution to begin with, and then also a evaluation of the policies of the religious institution, as opposed to a specific student making a complaint and evaluating that very specific complaint. So, again, this is focused on BYU as an entire entity, and it is investigated. It is already essentially done and what's called the evaluation stage. So before you get to an investigation, the federal government is first going to evaluate a complaint that comes in the door. And so at this point, the complaint has already passed the evaluation stage, and now the investigation is open.

John Dehlin [00:24:33] Is the complaint public? Do we have an access to the complaint?

Paul Southwick [00:24:38] Unfortunately, complaints filed by individual folks are not public. They're not automatically on the government's website. However, you can get them through a FOIA request for a Freedom of Information act request. My understanding is that the Salt Lake Tribune and some other outlets have made those FOIA requests. So I would. I would anticipate we'll be seeing that underlying letter. But what we essentially know about the complaint that kickstarted all this was, was it had to do, actually, back in 2020. So this was when Trump was still in office.

Paul Southwick [00:25:10] Someone from the BYU community filed a complaint with the Department of Education when the whole dating ban fiasco happened, where BYU said, okay, LGBTQ students can date. And then, oh, never mind, they can't date anymore. And that prompted a complaint back in March of 2020. Well, it looks like the Trump administration just kind of sat on that complaint. And then when we had the new administration come in, they've developed a completely new procedure for how they evaluate Title 9 complaints that might raise religious exemption issues when a school like BYU is. Is the subject of the complaint. And so they've put it through this new process.

Paul Southwick [00:25:50] And finally, I think it was October of 2021 is when they actually opened the investigation. And as far as we know, it's ongoing, though BYU is fighting it.

John Dehlin [00:26:02] I think this is an important point just to spend a couple more minutes on. So prior to a couple years ago, either Paul or Gerardo or Joe, prior to a couple years ago, the honor code said basically what. As it related to LGBTQ kids. And so what. What. What was it before? And then when the change happened, what changed? And then why. Why did it change? If we can speculate?

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:28] Yeah. So before the change, before 2020, the honor code at every LDS school was a little bit different. So BYU, Idaho had a little bit different honor code than BYU Provo and BYU Hawaii. The honor code, I'll just talk about Idaho really quick. So BYU, Idaho had just like a few letters. It was part of a sentence on what it called homosexual behavior. Now what that was up to interpretation what homosexual behavior was. And that language came directly from the handbook of instructions that since 2000, at least 2006, the Hamburg of instructions had been including that that language of homosexual behavior being against the law of chastity.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:20] Now there was not any definition of what homosexual behavior was. One could just imagine that any kind of homosexual, it doesn't have to be sexual, but any kind of, you know, same sex behavior would be against the law of chastity.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:37] Now, BYU Provo Honor code included, I think it was at least a couple sentences talking about what homosexual behavior was. And he talked about it was romantic behavior and he kind of gave a definition to homosexual behavior. But in 2020, the Handbook of instructions from the Church changed. And now that all the homosexual behavior language was removed, I mean it's still there on the title of, of a section, but it was removed from the actual explanation of what is against the law of chastity. And supposedly what we know is that the honor codes then were updated to reflect that change on the general Handbook of Instructions.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:24] So the honor code was, was standardized throughout all LDS schools and they completely removed all language of homosexual behavior. So now the only thing that the article says is that students should live the law of chastity and not have sexual relations outside of marriage.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:45] So this made everyone, including students to believe that, you know, BYU and BYU schools were going to start allowing same sex dating and same sex romantic behavior. And during two weeks, you know, the news was covering this, students were holding hands, kissing and taking pictures on campus. And then two weeks after this announcement or actually after it was made known that the BYU had changed its honor code, the director of the, I think it's a director that's in charge of cs. He's a general authority.

Joe Bax [00:29:24] He,

Gerardo Sumano [00:29:27] he put out a letter explaining that while it was removed from the honor goat romantic, same sex romantic behavior was still violating the spirit of the, of, of the honor code pretty much.

John Dehlin [00:29:41] And, and really quickly, I don't know if Paul or Joe or Gerardo want to kind of speculate. Why do you, what do you think was the intent of the Mormon Church in, in changing the honor code and removing same sex behavior as being specifically enumerated in the honor code. Were there, were there, were they foreseeing potential legal, were they trying to like avoid potential legal repercussions? Was it in, was it envisioning a lot of These lawsuits. Paul, you go first and then Joe, I want to hear if you guys have speculations in this regard.

Paul Southwick [00:30:18] Well, John, I mean, that's a really good question, but I would say, at least for me, it would be pure speculation. I'm not sure why the church would have made that change given that they still intended to enforce honor code penalties for LGBTQ students who engage in that kind of behavior. So, you know, one could imagine a variety of scenarios. There can be, you know, a lot of big institutions like byu, they get, they get funding from not only the federal government, but also from large grant making organizations, foundations, and sometimes those foundations and grant making organizations or corporate partnerships might have non discrimination requirements that are broader or go beyond those that are even required by Title 9 or the Federal government.

Paul Southwick [00:31:05] So there could be something going on in the background that we're not sure about. My gut tells me it probably came down to some sort of financial incentive or some kind of need for the appearance of being a more friendly institution.

John Dehlin [00:31:22] Joe, you want to add anything to that?

Joe Bax [00:31:24] Not really. I think that that's, that's very accurate. I think, you know, sometimes also they maybe might be a little bit ashamed of some policies and may not want to have them public, but still want to have the control. But you know, you don't know what's going on behind the scenes everywhere.

John Dehlin [00:31:39] So, so maybe they thought that they could make these changes, maybe people wouldn't notice or make a big deal about it and then they could create the appearance of being non discriminatory towards LGBTQ students. But maybe still through bishops and through honor code, you know, the autocode office behind the scenes still enforce the same behaviors. But then when BYU students started holding hands and kissing and taking selfies, they realized, oh, we went too far. And then they had to find a way to kind of regroup. Is that what we're thinking happened?

The Honor Code Change and Its Aftermath

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:16] I think that's what what happened and it has been confirmed by a few second hand sources. And you know, I've discussed this extensively with Kyle Ashworth who is really involved in this. And the basically are the theory is that the church didn't expect for everyone, students and including faculty and the honor code itself, the office that enforces the honor code at the universities, to interpret the removal of the policy to be like, okay, then that means that we're allowing it. Like the church leaders were not expecting that.

Paul Southwick [00:32:56] John and Gerardo, I will comment that BYU is not the only institution that did this, you know, switch and then take it back. There's other religious colleges that have also removed prohibitions on same sex dating. And then when it became public through news stories or what have you, I think it's often donor and alumni pressure or religious leadership pressure to then reverse that change once it becomes public knowledge. There may have been a lot of that going on here as well.

Joe Bax [00:33:30] And there's a little bit of this creates complications for students who are going to these universities as well, because the university will often advertise that they are Title IX compliant client, but they have a religious exemption, and they don't really explain what that means. And universities don't necessarily have to claim a religious exemption until they've actually discriminated against a student. So if they don't have these policies, public, a student may not know or expect that they're going to be discriminated against. And then once the school discriminates against them, they find out that they have no legal recourse whatsoever. So there's a real notice issue with this, especially when they're very vague with these policies. It puts students in a really bad position because they get punished when there was no written expectation that they do something different.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] Yeah, yeah. So that's really problematic. And, and, and, and this is complicated. Gerardo, we could, you could talk about this if you want. By the fact that, you know, some of the, let's just say gay Mormon celebrities, I don't mean that term in a derogatory way, but whether it's Charlie Bird or even Tom Christopherson, there are these men that are now basically admitting publicly that they're dating.

John Dehlin [00:34:49] They're dating other men, maybe even holding hands and hugging. But, but they're basically saying publicly, hey, we can still date as long as we live. The law of chastity. Our bishops are actually letting us date. And, and so within broader Mormon culture, there seems to be this desire to say, hey, as long as it's law of chastity, it doesn't matter whether it's same sex or the opposite sex. Bishop's being willing to do that. But then there's this weird double standard of, yeah, but not a byu. And that's. Gerardo, tell me if I've got that wrong, because that's got to be confusing to a BYU student.

John Dehlin [00:35:27] They're like, wait a minute, the brother of a Mormon apostle is publicly coming out and saying he's dating? Or like cosmo, you know, BYU's mascot.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:37] He hasn't said it, but he hasn't said that he's dating. But David Archuleta did say, David Archuleta said that on the interview that you and I covered, John, that a high up leader in the church pretty much told him that he could date as soon as he didn't get married.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:58] So, so we know about the stories, you know, that bishops are. And we know I, I know for BYU students who, whose bishops have told them in interviews, oh, you're allowed to date a s. Same sex partner as soon as you know there's no sexual behavior.

Gerardo Sumano [00:36:20] So, and, but, but then it's like bishop roulette. It's like it depends on the, if the honor code finds out. It depends on, it's, it's really gray how the, like the honor code doesn't really want to say how it's going to deal with situations like what the statement that they put out was like every situation is different. So we can't, we can give like a definite, definite answer for this. And, but I know student I, I know of couples, same sex couples who the honor code know that they are dating, but the honor code won't do anything about them. And it maybe has to do with their status, maybe it has to do with the blowback because they're influencers. I don't know. But, but you know, there's this definitely double standard on how these policies and how this rules are being enforced.

John Dehlin [00:37:12] And Paul and Joe, I, I don't know if you guys want to speak to the civil rights implications of like the, this environment where in the broader Mormon culture the Mormon Church is trying to. Number one, the Mormon Church realizes that conversion therapy, reparative therapy, celibacy and mixed orientation marriages. For decades, the Mormon Church was supporting those as the solutions to being lgbt. Now the Mormon Church realizes those are all losers. So in the broader cultural context, it's trying to sort of start to open up and just say, okay, we don't want to give you nothing.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] So we'll give the appearance that sometimes dating that still falls within law of chastity is okay. And so we have Tom Kristofferson and, and David Archuleta and others saying they're getting permission to date as long as they obey the law of chastity. But then you've got all these BYU students where the, the policy isn't explicit. They don't know what's safe. There's un, there's arbitrary enforcement of the law.

John Dehlin [00:38:09] Maybe Paul and Joe, you guys can speak to kind of the civil rights implications of what that environment must be like when your education, your career, all the money that you've invested all the time, all of that is potentially at stake. Including your housing. Paul, maybe you go first and then Joe.

Paul Southwick [00:38:28] Sure. That kind of ambiguity that you're describing, it almost always is going to hurt the students and serve to protect the institution. And so religious exemptions are dangerous for students because it leaves them in this sort of no person's land of, you know, what is safe, what is not safe. And so what ends up happening is that most students, they respond to the fear, and so. Or they have secret relationships, and that is really unhealthy for them.

John Dehlin [00:39:02] And so why is that unhealthy? Secretly dating people in the closet, why is that?

Paul Southwick [00:39:09] So there's been a lot of research on the mental health effects of having to remain closeted, or what's called, like, vigilance. And what a queer student on a campus like BYU has to be is they have to be always vigilant. Their roommates could turn them in, their professors could turn them in. If they are male and they act a little too feminine, or if they are female and act a little too masculine, or if they're non binary, someone could see them and turn them in. So they have to be especially vigilant. That takes a lot of mental energy, physical energy, and it's also responding to this environment where the message over and over in your head is that something is wrong with you.

Paul Southwick [00:39:55] And that can lead to anxiety, depression, and other adverse health consequences. So for being a student at these campuses, I met with a number of BYU students. When I visited campus a couple of times and met with some queer students. And many of them will tell me, hey, I got engaged. I'm really excited. Don't tell anyone because I'm not going to announce it until I have my diploma in my hands and then I will announce it. And so there is just this pressure and this state of vigilance that they constantly have to be in. That's not true for any straight student who might have a crush or might want to get engaged or might want to date or hold somebody's hand.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] And as someone with two kids in college, right now, I've got a kid in grad school, I've got a kid in undergrad. College is hard enough these days with COVID with just the academic requirements, with adjusting to being away from home, with the pressures of just being a teen or young adult in today's society, that's enough stress and pressure that's leading all sorts of depression and anxiety. To have all this on top of it just feels inhumane. Joe, do you want to add anything to what Paul said?

Joe Bax [00:41:06] Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely true. We talk to students every day. The burden this puts on individual students is immense. It's so hard for them. I mean, you said you have all the other burdens of school. Just living life, just making it through school is a huge task in and of itself.

Joe Bax [00:41:22] To have all of this massive burden that you're carrying around all day, every day, it's. It can be crippling. It can really derail their careers. It can derail their school, which derails their future careers. It has huge impacts, and there's just a massive power imbalance between these big institutions and a young vulnerable student who doesn't know a lot about the law, doesn't know a lot about procedures, doesn't know about what potentially their rights could be. And when you remove all accountability and oversight through this exemption, it creates a vacuum that just attracts abusers, and it leaves these students incredibly vulnerable to abuse. These are big institutions.

Joe Bax [00:42:02] They need to have accountability. They need to be, you know, there need to be rules and procedures that protect these students because they are so vulnerable. So it's just. It's just unconscionable to leave students in this scenario with. With no protections.

BYU Accreditation and Elder Holland's Remarks

John Dehlin [00:42:17] Okay, so really quickly, just. Just in parallel, I thought. I thought it was worth noting that in addition to the federal investigation going on against byu, BYU happens to be up for accreditation. And that's a separate process, but it's also related.

John Dehlin [00:42:38] Paul, is there anything you want to talk about that? Because what. What we want listeners to understand is we're not just covering so that we can, you know, provide awareness and sensitivity to BYU students. There are calls to action at the end of today's episode that relates both to the federal investigation and the accreditation process, both of which there are potential action items that we're going to be sharing with you at the end. If you're a community member, if you're a BYU student, if you're a BYU alum student, we're going to be giving you things you can do. And that's just some foreshadowing to help with both of those processes. But really quickly, Paul, do you want to talk about the accreditation process which is separate from this federal investigation?

Paul Southwick [00:43:25] Right. Accreditation process is separate, but it's also a requirement to get federal funding is that you have to be an accredited institution. So there is a tie in. In relationship to federal funding, which is where then Title 9 comes in. So when you're looking at BYU's accreditation being up this year, what the accreditation agency is going to look for, here are a Couple of things. One, they're going to look at transparency. It's really important to accrediting institutions that educational institutions are transparent with their students about their policies, including disciplinary policies. So this could be an area of concern for BYU because it's flip flopped, it's left things very vague.

Paul Southwick [00:44:07] There could be a real transparency concern that the accrediting agency could look into. Separate from transparency, there are requirements around diversity and inclusivity and making sure that your educational environment is safe and inclusive and open to all students who want to attend. So that's going to be another area that the accrediting agency is going to look at. Now, institutions like BYU and other religious colleges, they've known that this is going to be an issue that's going to come up for them. So they have already made a lot of arguments and policy arguments. And I think that there's been some federal changes where accrediting institutions have to respect the religious mission of the educational institution when they're doing the accreditation and evaluation process.

Paul Southwick [00:44:54] So as you can imagine, there's kind of squishy terms here. You know, religious mission has to be respected, diversity and equality and transparency has to be respected. It's going to be a difficult job for the accrediting institution. But the important thing is that the public, students, alumni, community members should be involved in this accreditation process. And you can file a third party comment or a complaint and the accrediting organization will look at those, and those are very important to holding the institution accountable.

John Dehlin [00:45:30] Joe, did you want to add anything to that or should. I've got a question really quick, but Joe, do you want to add anything to that?

Joe Bax [00:45:35] No, I think, I think that's pretty complete.

John Dehlin [00:45:37] Okay, so a question I have is recently in Haro, you did a little, you've done a little bit of background refreshing on this. Elder Holland gave that famous talk at BYU where he basically called on, you know, staff and faculty to pick up their intellectual muskets to, to defend the church's policies as, as they regard to LGBTQ individuals. We covered that. We covered his sort of smearing of Matt, Matt East Easton. I always get his name wrong. Eastman or Eastman, what is it?

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:15] Easton.

John Dehlin [00:46:17] We covered his smearing of a former BYU valedictorian, Matt Easton. But. But one of the things he even foreshadowed, it's almost as if he's aware of that either with this federal investigation or the accreditation renewal, that BYU may be in the crosshairs. And that's where he kind of gave a little bit of foreshadowing where he talked about the possible day when BYU might start to lose some of its affiliations with different organizations. Do I have that right, Gerardo? And then Paul and Joe. Do you guys want to add anything to that?

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:50] Yeah, that's correct. One of the famous sentences from his talk was when he said that if we have to, to lose credentials. And he didn't say accreditations, but something similar. I can't remember the word exactly. But he said, if so be it. If we have to die on this same sex issue, we'll die on it. But, yeah, see, he was definitely mentioning it.

John Dehlin [00:47:17] Joe. Joe or Paul. Is there anything you guys would want to add about any potential context to Elder Holland's statement as it relates to byu? Anything you guys want to add to that, we'll go to Joe first.

Joe Bax [00:47:35] I don't have anything specifically to say. It sounds like Paul's trying to talk, but maybe Paul's muted.

John Dehlin [00:47:39] Go ahead, Paul.

Paul Southwick [00:47:41] Sure, I can jump in here real quick. Well, what BYU and other schools are seeing in. In the future, we don't know if it's the near future or the distant future, but what they're seeing is what happened during the civil rights movement for black equality of black Americans. And institutions like byu, or most famously Bob Jones University, had religious beliefs that prohibited equal treatment of black students. And eventually those court cases went there, went their way through the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court sided with equality over the religious liberty interests that the schools were advancing. And so I think schools like BYU and other religious colleges sort of see the writing on the wall that that probably will happen at some point with respect to LGBTQ students and LGBTQ equality.

Paul Southwick [00:48:38] However, I think that they're feeling a little bit safer or maybe a lot safer right now, given the current makeup of the United States Supreme Court. So probably they're thinking this isn't any time in the next year or two, but down the line, they're going to really have to. To face the music on this.

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:00] Yeah, I think, Paul, you brought up a really good point. I think it's. It's a good, good time to address it. I've heard many times, even from LGBT advocates, especially in Utah, and it has to do with maybe the way, you know, people and. And LGBT people are erased in Utah. We're raised to believe that this exemptions are so embedded and written in the Constitution that there's nothing we can do about it. So therefore, we either should comply or compromise.

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:38] But just in one, one, yesterday, I was meeting with Joe and talking about this, and I said, well, would a religious university be able to claim an exemption because of our religious belief and, and, and discriminate on the basis of race?

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:55] And, and like you just addressed Paul, they wouldn't. A religious university today wouldn't be able to claim an exemption to, to discriminate in the basis of sex. Sorry. On the basis of race. So what my question to you, Paul is like, what is the, with the problem with, with the argument that this exemptions are embedded in the Constitution and that there's nothing we can do about them so we should leave the issue alone.

Paul Southwick [00:50:28] That's a really important issue that you're raising. And how we see things at reap and how I understand the Constitution is that when you're dealing with regulating a purely private organization. So let's say that the BYU schools were purely private. They didn't take any government money, they just operated on church funds.

Paul Southwick [00:50:54] In that scenario, the ability of the federal government to come in there and regulate about LGBT equality or even racial equality is a lot more constitutionally problematic. But when you're talking about taxpayer money, government money, then the Constitution clearly allows the government to attach non discrimination requirements to the receipt of that government money. Why? Because you don't have to take it. It's not mandatory that you take the money. It's not mandatory that you get into business with the federal government.

Paul Southwick [00:51:30] But when you do go into business with the federal government, the federal government represents all Americans or it should represent all Americans and then you take on those non discrimination requirements that's been tested in the Supreme Court and it's been repeatedly affirmed that when government money is involved, non discrimination requirements can be attached.

Paul Southwick [00:51:53] So why do we hear so much about how well this is impossible, like we can't have civil rights without big religious exemption here. I think that's because some institutions like the Mormon Church and some of the evangelical institutions, they have a really loud microphone and they have been blaring this message for a very long time and signaling to their political leaders that look, if you want our votes, you are going to, to you are going to make sure that we are exempt from civil rights protections. And so it's really important when you're looking at civil rights laws that what we're talking about here are taxpayer funded schools. And when taxpayer money is involved, the Constitution permits non discrimination requirements.

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:46] Yeah, that's awesome. And then this, I think you mentioned something really interesting about, you know, this institution having a very large mic and, and putting these ideas out in, in to the rate that, you know, most people believe them today, you know that it doesn't matter if they receive federal funding, they should be protected. But like you said, in reality, these things could be challenged.

Joe Bax [00:53:16] And.

Title IX Explained and BYU's Legal Response

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:17] But, Joe, would you be able to talk to us a little bit about just really quickly what Title 9 is? Because this is what, what the federal investigation is about.

Paul Southwick [00:53:30] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:30] It's a violation of Title 9. So what Title 9 is and how the religious universities started getting this exemptions and how Ding Oaks was super involved with this whole thing in the 70s.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] And then we can cover President Woren's response about Title 9 as well. Yeah, I think all that would be important.

Joe Bax [00:53:52] Yeah. So Title 9 covers anti discrimination policies in the arena of government funding. It says that if you receive government funding, you cannot discriminate against anybody on the basis of sex in the provision of your educational program. So if your educational program is receiving federal money, you can't exclude students on unconstitutional bases.

Joe Bax [00:54:16] There is a religious exemption to Title ix, though, that says that to the extent that Title IX would violate the religious tenets, the sincerely held religious tenets of a university, universities are exempt. But there also be an implied idea that that exemption could not also override the civil rights of students who are attending there as well.

Joe Bax [00:54:38] So, I mean, many, many religious universities have argued for a very broad application of this religious exemption to basically apply to anything that they might claim. BYU's President Oaks was one who really argued very hard for exemptions. He said that there should be a constitutional free exercise exemption and that the exemption in the. In title nine was incredibly broad.

Joe Bax [00:55:07] And BYU has had 70s. Right in the back in the 70s. Yeah. And BYU and, and has had a big role in pushing that argument forward. It's one of these. We talk about how our institutions have put up barriers to civil rights movements over time.

Joe Bax [00:55:22] The institution I grew up in, which was the LDS Church, has also put up. Has worked very hard to put up barriers in this area that have slowed the civil rights progress for students that attend these schools.

John Dehlin [00:55:38] Paul, is there anything you want to add. Add to that?

Paul Southwick [00:55:44] No, I think that what we're dealing with here is a. You know, there's a clash between the government's interest in providing education for all Americans and then a religious liberty interest in, you know, respecting the religious rights of religious educational institutions. And what we're living in, in this moment is where should that balance fall? And what we advocate for at reap is that the balance should fall that for. For equality when taxpayer money is involved and when the safety of LGBTQ Students is on the line. But this is going to be something that we're going to see continue to be fought over for for quite some time.

John Dehlin [00:56:36] So before we actually talk about BYU's response by Kevin J. Worth and BYU President, I'm reading in the notes that Gerardo put together that originally Title 9 was, was focusing mostly on historic discrimination against women who were having children out of wedlock or, or who chose to have abortions. Title 9 was put in place to protect that those sorts of scenarios. Is that right, Paul and Joe?

Paul Southwick [00:57:06] Yeah. So in the 1970s and 80s where the government's interest in protecting women clashed with BYU and other religious universities had to do in regulating, basically regulating women's bodies, their appearance and reproduction and whether or not they would have access to certain programs that the schools only wanted to give access to men. So that's where these religious exemptions first started in, in the 70s and 80s. And it wasn't until the Obama administration that the government for the first time said that sex discrimination includes sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. And so at that point in time, from then on is where we've been dealing with issues of sexual orientation and gender identity as well.

John Dehlin [00:57:55] So maybe then it makes sense to review Kevin Worthen's letter. Gerardo, we're going to be including a copy of this letter in our show notes, is that right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:58:03] Yeah, yeah, we will.

John Dehlin [00:58:04] Does somebody want to give just a description of what this letter is and why it was written? Who would be the best to do that? Gerardo, do you want to do that?

Gerardo Sumano [00:58:14] I can do it, yeah. Really? I mean it's, it's pretty simple. It's just so, you know, ocr, Department of Education notifies the school they're under an open investigation. And so Kevin Worthen on his role of president of the university submits a letter responding to, to the, to the investigation. And pretty much what he's saying is we have the right to discriminate.

Gerardo Sumano [00:58:46] We have the right to be exempt from this anti discrimination laws from Title nine because we are a private institution. He submits evidence including the Family Proclamation as part of the. The Family Proclamation becomes evidence as why the church should be entitled to this discrimination.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:06] And, and then one of the what. So I. So on the slides that the. There's two slides that we're going to show. There's just two excerpts from this letter that I would like Paul and Joe just to address really quickly just so people can also know what kind of like the letter is about and what, what Kevin is the president of university is claiming.

John Dehlin [00:59:31] So if it's okay, I'll read an excerpt and then have Paul and Joe respond to it. Not, not in a combative way, just to sort of help us understand what's going on legally, for the most part. So this is A letter dated November 19, 2021, signed by Kevin J. Worthen, president of Brigham Young University. Gerardo's pulled out two excerpts that he feels most passionate about. The first one reads, BYU maintains that the text, structure, purpose and history of Title IX make clear that the term sex is not ambiguous and refers only to biological differences between males and females, and therefore Title IX does not apply to discrimination, quote, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

John Dehlin [01:00:23] Now, this is different than what you just told us, Paul, that came out of the Obama administration. So I don't mean to steal your thunder, but do you want to tell us, do you have a first reaction, at least legally, to Worthen's response? Sure.

Paul Southwick [01:00:40] And so, as you note, that's what BYU maintains. However, that's not what the Department of Education maintains, nor is it what most courts who have addressed the. The issue maintained. You may recall that the Supreme Court recently issued a decision in a Title VII case called Bostock, where even with a conservative majority, the Supreme Court said in Title 7, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment, they said sex discrimination necessarily includes sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. And Title vii and Title 9 are usually interpreted the same way in this area. And in fact, a lot of courts have already been upholding that interpretation. So BYU is maintaining that. But so far, that's not really a winning argument before the government and the courts, at least not, not in general.

John Dehlin [01:01:37] I'm guessing BYU council is smart enough to know what you just said. Why would they make an argument that they know has. Has already sort of gone beyond a 1970s interpretation? Why would they continue to sustain an argument that they know has not. Has not borne modern fruit, so to speak?

Paul Southwick [01:02:01] I, I think that they're hoping that they can convince maybe some more conservative judges of this interpretation and try to get it to the Supreme Court. And the hope might be that the Supreme Court would side with them on this issue, on, on Title 9 differently than it did on Title 7. That could be something that they're trying to do, but otherwise can't speculate too much on. On where they're going here.

John Dehlin [01:02:26] Joe, is there anything else you want to add to that, that excerpt? Sorry, you're muted, Joe, go ahead.

Joe Bax [01:02:36] Yeah, I think that accurately describes everything there. I don't have anything to add to that, Gerardo.

John Dehlin [01:02:40] Anything you want to add?

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:43] I think, I think it's just interesting. Right. Like you said, John, like it was, it was really kind of mind boggling to me that, you know, the church with, with top notch lawyers that they have, they would put out an argument like this when even the conservative Supreme Court has not agreed on this interpretation of sex. So it's just interesting. I mean, they want to say the courts and everyone else has been saying that, but BYU maintains this position that goes against everything that everybody else has said. It's just really interesting. Right.

John Dehlin [01:03:22] I mean, without, without pulling abortion into this. I mean, in, in a time when like the, the nation is. Various states are actually toying with the idea of rolling back Roe vs. Wade, which was what implemented in 73, and states are starting to consider their own more severe restrictions. I mean, this is a time in American history where precedent, judicial precedent is sort of really under siege. I'm not a lawyer, but is that, is that right, Paul?

Paul Southwick [01:03:53] Yeah, I think that right now a lot of conservative advocacy legal organizations are really trying to pull, push the boundaries as much as they can on a lot of these civil rights and freedom issues and using religious liberty sort of as a sword rather than a shield in the hopes of carving out as much space for them to discriminate or to regulate people while they have a conservative Supreme Court.

John Dehlin [01:04:25] Yeah. Every time I hear the Mormon Church say religious freedom, what it seems to be saying is we want to be able to discriminate. It's not, you said sword versus shield. It doesn't seem to be saying let us practice our sincerely held beliefs. It almost always seems to be saying let us discriminate against marginalized, vulnerable populations. Is that an uncharitable? It probably is an uncharitable interpretation. I'm sure the church wouldn't frame it that way, but that's just the optics from my point of view.

Paul Southwick [01:05:01] I think that's how it feels for a lot of the, you know, young people who are harmed by these policies is they do, they do feel like it's a sword being used to hurt them. I think it's accurate from that perspective.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:14] And I'll just bring up really quickly that Elder Oaks acknowledged that people feel that way on his speech to. Well, he, he went as, you know, University of Virginia, the University of Virginia, where he said people, people shouldn't think that we are looking for a license to discriminate when we're talking about these issues. So kind of like he acknowledges that people, you know, think about these things that way.

Joe Bax [01:05:44] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:44] And he might want to be changing people's opinion. But that's like Paul said, that's how that's how it feels like for especially for those who are experiencing the discrimination.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] Sure.

Joe Bax [01:05:56] And the battle for rights are always a fight and right now it's really crucial time to stand up and fight for students rights and and stand up for their civil rights. Because you know the con the Supreme Court can interpret things a little bit different. They have a little bit of leeway and you really have to fight and you have to advocate for students rights. You have to say that no, you shouldn't be discriminated against. You do have these civil it's kind of on all of us to be really, really loud to advocate for these students who don't really have a big voice themselves.

John Dehlin [01:06:30] Yeah, I love it. A quick shout out and thanks to Lisa Hayes. A few of you have donated to through Super Chat through the super chat feature of YouTube. We depend on your donations to make programming like this possible. So thank you Lisa and thanks to everyone who takes advantage advantage of that feature.

John Dehlin [01:06:51] It's tax deductible and it helps us keep this stuff alive. Okay, I'll read excerpt 2 from Kevin J. Worthen's response to this these Title 9 Office of Civil Rights Complaints and Investigations Kevin J. Worthen writes, in this case, the complaint alleges that BYU's application of the Honor Code to its campus community violates the Office of Civil Rights Title IX policy. Specifically, the complaint refers to A letter dated March 4, 2020 from Elder Paul V. Johnson, a General 3070 of the Church Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, then Commissioner of the Church Education System, to students, faculty and staff. The complaint asserts that the Office of Civil Rights Interpretation of Title IX is inconsistent with the Honor Code, which incorporates religious tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ regarding marriage, family, chastity, gender, and divine identity.

John Dehlin [01:07:46] OCR has previously recognized that BYU's Code of Honor is derived from religious tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ and that where treatment of employees and students would conflict with the religious tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ, BYU is granted an exemption from those requirements. BYU is therefore exempt from from any requirements under Title IX that may relate to sexual orientation or gender identity. To the extent that those requirements are inconsistent with religious tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ as reflected in the Honor Code. So it seems like their argument is, hey, we've got our sincerely held religious beliefs.

John Dehlin [01:08:26] Students sign the Honor Code and say they're going to follow the proclamation on the family. They're going to try and, you know, the marriage is eternal, the gender is eternal, that there are fixed, solid gender roles, that. That heterosexual sexuality is the only type of valid sexuality in the eyes of God and in our church and therefore byu. We're just gonna expect the same type of behavior that. That aligns with our religious beliefs. That seems to be the argument. Paul. What? What? Do you have any legal considerations that might be worth taking into consideration? Taking into consideration. Then Joe will have you talk next and go ahead and unmute yourself. Paul, really quick. Sorry.

Paul Southwick [01:09:08] Oh, all right. I think I'm unmuted. So what the Office of Civil Rights is going to do when they receive a complaint against byu, what they're going to do is they're going to look at that complaint, and in this case, it's about the honor code and LGBT students, and then they're going to look to see, is there a relic exemption already on file for BYU that says the Office of Civil Rights acknowledges a religious exemption for BYU and you're exempt from Title 9? Okay. While we're in the situation we're in where there's a federal investigation now of BYU for its honor code with respect to LGBT students, the reason we're in this situation is that BYU Provo has only historically asked for an exemption with respect to these pregnancy and other related type issues.

Paul Southwick [01:10:03] They don't have anything on file for sexual orientation or gender identity. In contrast, BYU Idaho did request an exemption previously for sexual orientation and or gender identity, and that was granted for BYU Idaho. But the Office of Civil Rights is going to look at Provo and Idaho differently and separately.

Paul Southwick [01:10:26] So there was nothing on file exempting byu. They looked at the complaint. They said, this is a valid complaint. We're going to open an investigation. Now what happens next is BYU is given the opportunity to claim the exemption. And that's exactly what they did in this letter. And they said, well, if you're not going to recognize our exemption automatically, then we're going to assert it right here before you, and we're going to be exempt from all these different requirements. And then, unfortunately, the Department, the Office of Civil Rights, did grant that exemption. So what does that mean? Well, it could result in one of two things.

Paul Southwick [01:11:07] Either the civil rights complaint and investigation could be dismissed any day now, or the investigation could continue if the Office of Civil Rights feels like something is going on at BYU that is not justified by their religious tenets. And that's going to be a real tricky area.

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:28] Joe, would you be okay talking about just, you know, this narrow or what What. What the Office of Civil Rights could do, like the. What could be the outcome of what Paul is talking about regarding doing a narrow interpretation of the exemption versus a broad interpretation of the exemptions that BYU is claiming to have?

Joe Bax [01:11:54] Yeah. So right now, the ball is in the court of the Office of Civil Rights. It has yet to be determined how granularly they will interpret this religious exemption. You'll notice that BYU basically asked for an exemption over everything. Right. And if you say, well, you know, I have X belief, therefore I should be exempt from every possible thing that could possibly violate that belief, OCR may say, well, you may have a belief in marriage between man and a woman, but does that mean that you can't provide physics classes to LGBTQ students? How do those things correlate? Does that mean you have to punish LGBTQ students differently than other students?

Joe Bax [01:12:42] So there. There is some possibility that the Office of Civil Rights may look more closely at that, but there isn't a real historical precedent for that in the past, and that's kind of up to the OCR's discretion, and we'll have to kind of wait to see how they handle these complaints.

Religious Exemptions and Civil Rights Tensions

John Dehlin [01:12:59] Part of what I think is interesting and relevant here, and this is directly related to Gerardo and your amazing episode on Mormon Stories podcast, is that right now, in 2022, it's legal to be same sex married in the United States. And the Mormon Church believes in honoring and sustaining the law. It's right there in its own articles of faith. And so, in theory, if a BYU student decided to get same sex married, that would be a fully legal and legitimate decision to make. And yet that could get them kicked out of byu. That's kind of. That's kind of bizarre, isn't it? It's not like we're talking about the illegal use of drugs or smuggling alcohol during prohibition.

John Dehlin [01:13:42] Like same sex marriage is a legal act that anywhere, any other university, any other non. I'll say any other secular university in the United States should not even be an issue. It should even be lauded or approved of. Paul, do you want to talk about that at all? Because that seems interesting or weird.

Paul Southwick [01:13:59] Yeah. John, Same sex marriage is not only legal, it's a constitutional right. And so every American has the constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex. And so one of the arguments we make in our class action lawsuit against the Department of Education about this religious exemption is we say, look, this religious exemption burdens the student's constitutional right to marry the person that they love. And because of that burden, the religious Exemption should be deemed unconstitutional. And so there really are some very significant rights that are, that are affected here. And what may be causing some of this, if you're looking historically, is for the longest time in American society, LGBT people and their relationships were criminalized.

Paul Southwick [01:14:54] You know, it was not that long ago that I would be a criminal for having married my husband, and now I have a constitutional right to marry my husband. So in some sense there may be a little bit of catching up to do in terms of LGBT equality here, because what we've gotten ourselves into is this situation where religious exemptions become so broad that they're now burdening constitutional rights. And, and, and that shouldn't be the case.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:21] Yeah. And really, the, the argument that Joe was talking about really blows my mind because would byu. Byu. In my mind, they can't prove that. This is my personal opinion. Right. That BYU can't prove that they're sincerely held religious beliefs.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:45] Does or does not allow them to give education to LGBT students in same sex relationships. Like there's no, there's not a belief in, in Mormon doctrine or, you know, Mormon thinking that would, would impede the school from giving, providing education to someone who has lgbt. And that's different from the argument from teachers. I know that's like a lot harder, harder argument, you know, providing equality for, for someone who's employed by the university. But the fact that these are students who are paying to get education, that's a lot harder argument for the school or for the religious institution to say, oh, my religion tells me that I can't give you education because of this belief that I have. So that's just a very interesting argument

John Dehlin [01:16:39] and a piece of history that I think a lot of people just don't, don't know about is especially orthodox Mormons. Is the Book of Mormon silent on same sex sexuality. The Doctrine of Covenants silent on same sex sexuality. The Pearl of Great Price silent on same sex sexuality. Joseph Smith silent on same sex sexuality.

John Dehlin [01:17:01] All you have are these really barbaric voices, violent, offensive statements that were made starting in like the 50s with Ernest Wilkinson or Marky Peterson or, or Spencer W. Kimball. You know, yes, they start saying super homophobic things in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but that's no different than when Brigham Young was, was saying that black people, you know, were evil back in the 1850s. Like those prophetic utterances are not doctrine. And they're the types of statements that the church in 2022 is fond to say was just, was just men speaking and was, was just policy, not doctrine. And so what a lot of Mormons don't know is that the church realized that they actually had no scriptural foundation at all for its discrimination against LGBTQ members.

John Dehlin [01:17:55] And so it had to come up with something. And so the Proclamation of the Family, which many Mormons think of as this inspired document, you just have to learn the history of the Proclamation of the Family to realize it was like a legal brief drafted by evangelicals that the Mormon Church, like, copied, pasted, redrafted, and then through enough editing processes, elevated to the status of, quote, a proclamation literally for legal purposes to try and. To try and provide some sort of doctrinal foundation for its discrimination. And we all know now, now that Greg Prince and others have revealed the history that that was literally not a prophetic sort of revelation from on high, but instead a legal maneuver copied and pasted from the evangelical Christians to try and give some sort of legal standing. Now, Joe, are you smiling a little bit? Did I get that wrong?

Joe Bax [01:18:53] No, I'm really sorry. I'm. I'm watching the comments. One of my high school teacher who was really influential to me, asked a really great question, so I was just smiling. I was really happy to see her on the. On the chat.

John Dehlin [01:19:04] Well, let's call it out. What was.

Joe Bax [01:19:05] Yes, it's Lori Embry. And she said, you know, but if it's equal, shouldn't it be acceptable for LGBTQ persons to do everything that heteronormative people do? Date, hold hands, kiss, pda, et cetera? Those rituals are important. That's absolutely correct. LGBTQ students are held to a completely different standard than their peers. They don't have the same rights. It's not equal enforcement. So I agree with that 100%. And it's nice to see you, Laurie.

John Dehlin [01:19:32] Thank you, Laurie, for joining us. We should also highlight a comment made by Jeremy. Jeremy Heiner, who gave a Super Chat donation, wrote, as a former BYUI student, I am so glad that the church is finally being investigated by the government. I had to deal with years of shame, self denial, and even self hatred because of these schools also. Crystal, thank you so much. Crystal Schaffen, thank you so much for your donation as well. Paul. I. I don't know if you even are able to comment on the proclamation of the family and. And church doctrine of theology. Or maybe Gerardo, you want to talk about that? Anything? Am I totally off base there? Is there some history there? Do you want to say no comment?

Paul Southwick [01:20:16] I can't really go into the history there, but what I can point out is. Or What I can ask is this question. Should a proclamation or the statements of the leader of a religion be determining the civil rights that all Americans should have? I think that the answer to that should be no. But unfortunately, the way this religious exemption in Title IX works is it sort of outsources the definition of our civil rights to religious leaders and those beliefs can change and shift with the wind, and that puts students in these dangerous kinds of situations.

Joe Bax [01:20:54] Yeah. And. And I don't know if I didn't clarify this earlier. I keep saying I grew up Mormon. I'm no longer Mormon, but I did have the history and background. But I remember, you know, on a personal note, I remember when the proclamation for the. The Family happened, and I had no idea that it was being used in this way. It seemed so innocuous, like it was taught us. Oh, the church is pro family. And the learning the history about that, I think is. Is really fascinating and it's just not what it was presented as, especially when I was growing up as a kid.

John Dehlin [01:21:31] Yeah, Heidi, really quick, Heidi has a comment. Heidi says my family doesn't believe me about the proclamation. Is there something I can show them to prove it? Documentation and research. Harada, will you make a note to include Greg Prince's book? Would you say, Harada, Greg Prince's book is the best resource to describe the history of the proclamation?

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:52] Yeah, I think even Taylor Petrie has even more information. He has some really interesting documents that he can show. He has a book and he has documents that he can show like that look exactly like the Family Proclamation. They have the same language. The, their cult proclamation by this evangelical organizations, and they came before the proclamations. It was almost. Taylor Petrie, I think he says it was almost like the family proclamation was drafted with all these documents in the room and they were like putting it together. But Taylor, Taylor Petri's book and Greg Prince's book.

John Dehlin [01:22:32] Okay. And you'll, you'll. Harada, will you remember?

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:35] Yeah, I'll put. Link.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] Okay. Really quickly, I think, I think we should probably start working towards the close here just to maximize the number of people who end up watching this. There are, there are some action items that, that our listeners can engage in that have at least a small chance and maybe even a meaningful chance of making a difference. And we're going to be including this in the description. But, but they fall into kind of two or three categories. One is filing Title 9 complaints with the Office of Civil Rights. We want to cover that first. And then there are making either comments or complaints regarding BYU's accreditation.

How to File Complaints and Take Action

John Dehlin [01:23:17] And just to be clear, we're not trying to hurt BYU here. I'm a BYU alum. Gerardo's a BYU alumni. There's a lot that we love about byu. We want BYU to thrive and succeed. We just want it to be more humane to everyone, but also to specifically to LGBTQ students. And then we want, you know, rise and shout. The cougars are out. We want you guys to do well. So let's start with the Title nine complaints. Paul, do you want to tell our listeners who it is that can file a Title 9 complaint and how they should go about it? Let's start there, and then we'll get to the accreditation. Comments and complaints.

Joe Bax [01:24:00] You're muted, Paul.

Paul Southwick [01:24:02] Sure. Filing a Title 9 complaint is really important and something that's easy and concrete

Joe Bax [01:24:07] that you can do.

Paul Southwick [01:24:08] So you can just type in U.S. department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, Title IX complaint. Just put that in Google and a complaint will come up or a link will come up. You can do a form online and submit it to the Office of Civil Rights. Won't take you that long. Who can do it? Anybody can do it. The Office of Civil Rights has to receive these complaints from anyone, I think, especially if you are a student or professor or an alum of BYU and you have some connection. Even better. But anyone can file a Title IX complaint. You can just do it online real quick and easy.

John Dehlin [01:24:45] Is it true Gerardo was mentioning that you guys are. Maybe it would be helpful for specifically current BYU students, professors, or staff if they're going to file a Title IX complaint, that maybe they could contact you guys and you might be able to give them some guidance on how to make that effective. Is that right, Paul? Sure.

Paul Southwick [01:25:08] Yeah. If you're a current student or faculty member interested in filing a Title 9 complaint, you can contact us at REAP.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] We're the reap.org that's infohereap.org Is that right? Yeah.

Paul Southwick [01:25:25] Yes, I believe that that's correct. For our email address, we do have some limitations on how many people we can help because we've been getting a lot of these requests. But we can at the very least point you to information on how to do it on your own and provide some information on that. It's really important. Even if all of these complaints get dismissed, and just to be honest, there's a strong likelihood that they will be closed on the basis of the religious exemption. But even if that's the case, it's very important to make this record to let the Department of Education Know that this is an important issue and that they should really be looking closely and paying close attention. And maybe our political leaders need to make some changes to Title ix.

Joe Bax [01:26:09] And I would say, in addition, as somebody who's worked with a lot of students, helping them shepherd these complaints through, there are Title IX offices on campus. If you file with them, you then have to wait for that process to complete before you can file one with the ocr. It's much more efficient and much more effective to just file with the Office of Civil Rights initially first, if you can.

Joe Bax [01:26:32] Sometimes the. The schools can be really problematic. Not all schools are, but some schools can really drag out the process, make it really difficult for students to get relief. So that's a really important thing. And then second, as Paul stated, and I know, John, I listened to one of your episodes a few weeks ago where you were discussing, you know, as a not for profit, it's very difficult. We're going against some really big entities that are really well funded that. That are there, that are powerful and they can do a lot of things. We're just a small organization, a lot like Mormon Stories. We depend on supporters to help.

Joe Bax [01:27:07] If you want to help students, if you want to help, you know, adopt a student so we can help them file their Title 9 application, we'd appreciate any donations, any help that you could do, because it is really expensive. It's a lot of. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to be able to process these. And we're limited in what we can do by the resources that we have. So, I mean, we wish we could help every single student out there, but there are 200 of these religious schools across the United States as well, and there's only so many of us, and we only have so much time to be able to do it. So if you care about these issues, you know, donate. Donate to Mormon Stories Podcast. The people who are doing this work

John Dehlin [01:27:46] all across, you know, no donate to reap. So are you saying that they can donate to the REAP and go to the reap.org and make donations to support what you guys are doing? Because that's. Don't for this episode. Don't donate to the Open Stories for them for this episode. Donate to the REAP. Where do they go to donate to the REAP?

Joe Bax [01:28:07] Yeah, you can go to the reap.org we have a button there. It's a donate button, just like every other organization provides you the information where you can donate. And, you know, we use all of that funds, all of those funds to help the students, to advocate for them to get their title 9 complaints processed. So, you know, any, any help, anything you can give would help us help the students.

John Dehlin [01:28:27] Okay. And Gerardo's pasting that into the comments right now. And we'll also, Gerardo, maybe we'll have a place in the show notes where it says donate to the reap. And then the link to the reap in the donate button. Is that, is that okay?

Gerardo Sumano [01:28:41] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Okay.

Paul Southwick [01:28:42] We're also tax deductible as well. So just putting that out there.

John Dehlin [01:28:46] I love it. Okay, so, so that, that, that's title nine complaints. When we talk about a federal investigation.

Gerardo Sumano [01:28:55] John, do you want to open the link I just sent you just so you can show really quick the PDF? And it can just be a glance, but just to give people an idea on how easy it is, because it's, it's honestly not complicated at all. It's literally just asking your name, your, you know, your information. You're. You can even do it anonymous if you're a student or a professor. Maybe the, if you contact the reap at the email that we said, if you're a student and a professor, they might be able to provide some guidance for you to do it by yourself. But it's a, it's a pretty easy document. You just go through it and answer it. It's a few pages long. And you just submit that.

John Dehlin [01:29:45] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:46] You just sign it and date it.

John Dehlin [01:29:49] Okay. So that form will make available in our show notes. Gerardo is pasting it as well. Thank you, Gerardo. That's a good point. All right, really quickly, in addition to title nine, there's also BYU's accreditation that's up for, up for renewal potentially. And there are two things that people can do, if I'm not mistaken. One is to provide comments, and the other is to file actually accreditation complaints. Paul, do you want to just talk about what's a comment, who can do comments, how to do comments? We've got some stuff we can put up visually as well, but maybe just talk us through this process if you want to. Paul?

Paul Southwick [01:30:32] Sure. And I'm less familiar with this process, but my general understanding is that from, for a comment, any member of the community can, can put a third party comment, and that will be considered during the accreditation process for complaints. I think that there might have to be some kind of institutional affiliation in order to do the complaint. So if you're a student or a faculty or admin@ BYU, you can submit a complaint, but if you aren't. But you care about this issue, you can still still submit a third party comment and that will be looked at by the accreditation organization.

John Dehlin [01:31:09] Okay. And I'll just show in our description, we'll have how to make a comment. There's, there's a couple paragraphs that actually explain. It's basically, there's an address, third party comment, 8060s 165th Avenue, Northeast, Sweet Hundred Redmond, WA 98052.

John Dehlin [01:31:33] That's the instructions on how to submit a comment to the accreditation board and then for the complaints. We'll also have a link for how to file the complaints. And it sounds like, you know, I'm just going to make a general plea. It doesn't help to kind of spam these organizations with kind of, you know, thoughtless, mean spirited, kind of Internet spammy type comments.

John Dehlin [01:31:58] Do our best as a community. Let's, let's have it be students, let's have it be alumni, let's have it be faculty and staff. Let's have it be people that are directly impacted, write sincere and heartfelt comments and complaints. Let's not just spam these things with non credible comments and complaints that then make them have to say, well, we're getting so much garbage, so much noise, we can't even really make sense of, of what's coming in. Is that, is that fair to say? Joe and Paul?

Paul Southwick [01:32:32] Yeah, I would say in your comment or complaint, focus on student safety and focus on transparency, because those are two things that the accrediting institutions really care a lot about and will look into. So I would say focus on, on that.

John Dehlin [01:32:50] Gerardo, can you make a note of that? So as a, as guidance in the comments and complaints, tell us again, Paul, the two buzzwords or the issues that are most at stake.

Paul Southwick [01:33:01] Right. I would say focus on student safety and also on transparency. And so student safety is pretty obvious. Safety of LGBT students, transparency that has to do with, you know, schools need to be transparent about what's allowed, what's not, and it's really confusing for students right now. And so accrediting bodies, they care a lot about transparency. So I would use that word shout

John Dehlin [01:33:25] out to Marco, who says, I donated to the reap. Marco, thank you for supporting the reap. And I hope other listeners and viewers, even if you just donate 10 bucks or 50 bucks or 100 bucks, that those sorts of donations, if 100 people, you know, we've had just 700 people watching or listening to this episode live stream, that means tens of thousands are going to end up listening to or watching this. If just all of you donated 10 bucks. That could be amount of money that really makes a big difference. So thanks to Marco and, and for everybody. Please donate to, to the reap and we'll.

John Dehlin [01:34:07] We'll help these guys make a difference. Let's. Let's go ahead and start wrapping up our final comments. We're at the hour and a half mark. Joe, why don't we have you go first with any final comments or thoughts you have. Gerardo will let you go, and then Paul will give you the final word. Is that okay?

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:24] Yep.

Joe Bax [01:34:26] Yeah, just say. I'd say, you know, as we talked about earlier, this is just a super, super crucial time to stand up and advocate for students. I was really inspired by the BYU's USGA group. They wrote a statement in response to BYU's actions. I kind of, I want to read just a couple of words of what they said. They said, this is the. This is the LGBT group on BYU's campus. They said USGA exists to create a safe space for queer students at a university that is anything but safe for them. We're the longest standing queer BYU organization, and the university has continuously denied requests for official club status.

Joe Bax [01:35:04] By doubling down on their policies of queer exclusion, BYU once again sends the message to queer students that they are not welcome at this school. Byu, you can ban USGA from campus. You can force us to sign a changed honor code and then hold us to an unwritten clause. You can prohibit a rainbow lighting of the why, but you will never win. Queer people exist at byu. They always have. They always will. We protest every day in our classrooms, in the library, in the cougar, eat in the. On the entirety of BYU owned property. Our existence is our protest.

Joe Bax [01:35:42] I am incredibly fortunate to get to work with students every day. They're incredibly brave. They're under immense amount of pressure. They have so much going on with their lives, and a lot of them are standing up to fight for the rights of other students because they don't want anybody else to ever have to experience the pain that they experienced while we were there.

Joe Bax [01:36:02] So it's just kind of. It's a privilege for me to get to be able to work and help students. We really appreciate your support on the podcast. John and Haro, you guys are excellent supports for us. And yeah, we've just got to do everybody. We all have to do what we can to. To change this.

John Dehlin [01:36:20] I said I'd have her go next, but Paul, let's have you go next and then. And thank you, Joe. That was a beautiful summary. Paul, let's have you go next and then we'll close with you, Gerardo.

Closing Words of Support for LGBTQ Students

Paul Southwick [01:36:30] Sure. Well, for all the students who might be listening, just want to tell you that you're not alone and that we have got your backs. And I think that legal battles, while I'm a lawyer and I fight legal battles, legal battles are won and lost sometimes not on actually the legal rules. They're won or lost on the people that are involved, the human stories. So keep telling your stories. Keep standing up. If you're an ally, please continue to stand up for the LGBTQ people who need you and keep letting that light shine.

John Dehlin [01:37:04] Thank you, Paul. Both you and Joe are doing great work, really. We really appreciate you taking the time to come on Mormon Stories podcast. We really wish you the best. Please, everyone, please support the reap and. And please let us know if we can help it into any other way. Okay? Paul and Joe will do. All right. Keep up the good fight, Gerardo. You are the one that made this possible today. You deserve all the glory and credit. Any final words, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:37:35] Just want to say, John, that this an issue that is very important for me and very important, important for many, many LGBT youth and, and, and, you know, young adults who are at BYU schools or have. Who have experienced discrimination at LDS schools and even at all the religious universities and colleges around the US If I could had to summarize with the most important subjects that we talked about. For me, the highlight of it all is, like, I think in my personal opinion, it's dangerous to believe that there's nothing we can do about this, that BYU receiving federal funding and. And getting these licenses to discriminate is embedded in the Constitution like that.

Gerardo Sumano [01:38:28] I think that's a dangerous thought. And I think as a Mormon people, we have a bigger responsibility because it was. It's our leaders who put all this blocks, legal blocks and bulletproof vests so they can't be touched. But it's. It's my opinion, my belief that this can change and eventually will change. So we just gotta keep working on it.

John Dehlin [01:39:00] I love it. I love it. Well, Gerardo, we couldn't do this without you. It's so great to have you as a friend, as a collaborator with Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation, not only with the cinematography, but as a producer and as a co host and again as a friend. So we love you, Gerardo. So grateful for you, grateful for Joe and Paul, and thanks to all our listeners. Amazing comments both on YouTube and on Facebook. Want to thank everyone there and I'll just. I'll just conclude by saying we couldn't do this without the support of our donors. So thanks to all our donors to Mormon Stories, the Open Stories foundation, who make this possible.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Thanks to all the staff that includes, you know, Brooklyn and Kara and Jennifer and Jen and, and everyone who. And our board, Clinton, Jenny, Clinton, Carrie. We're so grateful for everyone who supports us and makes this possible. Please, please, BYU students, please stay safe. I do want to remind everyone, I remember when Sam Young first reached out to me and he started doing the voting opposed thing. And not a lot came of that. And then he came to me and said, I'm going to do a petition to protect LDS children.

John Dehlin [01:40:14] And not a lot came of that. But then Sam Young just said, I'm not going to quit. And he started doing the marches for the children. And we all know that the little engine that could Sam Young ended up maybe making one of the biggest differences in the shortest amount of time that we've ever seen to Mormon policy. And I think we need the spirit of Sam Young in this movement. And Gerardo, you and Paul and Joe, you guys are carrying that torch. But also you listeners, you BYU students out there, BYU Provo, BYU Hawaii, BYU Rexburg, any BYU faculty or staff, if some of you can kind of take up that, that baton and just say, I'm going to be the little engine that could.

John Dehlin [01:40:54] I'm going to file my complaints, I'm going to file the comments, I'm going to address the accreditation board or the US Department of Education, and I'm going to keep participating and engaging in this until BYU changes. It's those little engines that could that end up defying all of our legal, legal judgment or legal expertise or our prognostications about what might be possible.

John Dehlin [01:41:20] It's all you little engines that could that end up breaking through that, that, that rainbow glass ceiling and, and changing the lives of BYU students in the present and in the future. You know, the LGBTQ BYU students with, with people who just won't quit and won't give up and that don't believe the naysayers. So please don't give up. Please keep fighting. Paul, Joe and Harada, you guys keep fighting. And all of you listeners do your part, follow the instructions in our descriptions, file the comments, file the complaints, and maybe in a year or two, we're going to see a very different environment for byu LGBTQ students, BYU students everywhere. Fair deal.

Paul Southwick [01:42:04] Sounds great.

John Dehlin [01:42:05] All right, thanks again, everyone, and thanks. Thanks for joining us on Mormon Stories podcast. Please stay tuned. We'll have other great episodes in the days, weeks and months ahead. Ahead. Take care, everybody.

Joe Bax [01:42:17] Thank you.

Gerardo Sumano [01:42:18] Bye.

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