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Brigham Young University Is Punishing LGBT Rape Victims for Breaking School’s Honor Code

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Any Same-Sex ‘Behavior’ Including Being a Victim of Sexual Assault Violates Mormon University’s Honor Code

Brigham Young University (BYU), already under federal investigation for its negligent handling of reported sexual assault, is also punishing LGBT students who report sexual assault, blaming them for “inappropriate homosexual behavior,” Slate reports.

The Utah-based private university’s mission statement reads that it was “founded, supported, and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [to] assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life.” The educational institution then advises that this “assistance should provide a period of intensive learning.”

The price of this intensive learning is more than the $2,575 for church-goers or the $5,150 for non-churchgoers per semester. An “Honor Code” is imposed upon each student upon admission. It’s the violation of this so-called code which can result in the potential punishment, suspension or expulsion which LGBT students face, should they report sexual assault.

The code’s statement calls for students to demonstrate, on and off campus, the “moral virtues encompassed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.” These virtues include, but are not limited to: using clean language, living a “chaste and virtuous” life, not drinking alcohol, tea, or coffee, encouraging others to do the same, and respecting others.

This respect does not pertain to “homosexual behavior,” it could seem, though BYU’s honor code advises that it “will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction.” It further concludes that “homosexual behavior is inappropriate … [and] includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.”

Such as, apparently, being the victim of same-sex sexual assault.

The Salt Lake Tribune detailed several such assaults, one of which included a gay male student identified only as Andy. He described his “first, secret boyfriend [that had] raped him and dumped him,” and how, “traumatized by and lonesome for the one person who accepted him as a gay man,” he eventually turned to his student congregation’s Bishop for help and support, after a suicide attempt.

What happened next is heartbreaking.

As the same-sex “behavior” was in violation of the honor code, Andy was given an ultimatum in response. He had only two options: to detail the rape with BYU’s Honor Code Office to be disciplined, or for the Bishop to report him for violation of “homosexual behavior” (and be disciplined.)

“It was real that what had happened was going to cost me my education and my job,” Andy told the Tribune, revealing that an investigator took notes “furiously” as he inquired about “what kind of sex had occurred, the dates of when it had occurred, [and] where it had occurred.”

The investigation into the sexual assault led to Andy’s “withheld suspension,” allowing him to attend classes but lose his campus job, his campus housing and ability to participate in campus activities. He was given a “folder of religious writings about the dangers of homosexuality” and forced to meet with a counselor on a weekly basis, which led him to unsuccessfully attempt a heterosexual lifestyle.

BYU declined comment on the matter to the Tribune, and Andy has committed to “grin and bear it,” in order to obtain his BYU degree, the paper reports.

The Tribune also reports a bisexual woman was raped by a man but was afraid to report it for fear of being interrogated and forced to reveal she is bisexual. She chose to confide in visiting teachers, which the Tribune describes as “companions assigned to check on the spiritual and physical welfare of women within Mormon congregations.”

What happened next is also heartbreaking.

“I’m crying and begging them not to tell anybody. The next thing I know, they’ve told the bishop, who told his counselors, and they told their people, and everybody knows,” Aubree told the Tribune. “Having been outed at 19 years old, I went from being the person who never kissed anyone, never wore a tank top, never had a Coke, to being called into the bishop’s office and being compared to a drug addict, a kleptomaniac and a person with anger issues.”

As NCRM’s Claude Summers explains, while “no one is forced to attend such a repressive institution (though, of course, many [students] experience enormous family and community pressure to attend the ‘Lord’s University.’)”

This notion is fueled by the fact that following the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, Mormon policy was updated to label married same-sex couples as “apostates,” and to bar their children from baptism.

While the federal investigation into BYU’s negligence is ongoing, we know that from 2007 to 2014, Utah’s youth suicide rate nearly tripled. In January of this year, it was reported that a known 32 LGBT Mormons, aged 14-20, had committed suicide, and five more LGBT youth suicides were reported last month.

“I have been asked what I mean by word of honor,” a quote by Karl G. Maeser, considered BYU’s founder, reads on BYU’s Honor Code website. “I will tell you. Place me behind prison walls – walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground – there is a possibility that in some way or another I may escape.”

“But stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of the circle? No, Never!”

“I’d die first!”

Â

Image: North Campus, Brigham Young University
Photo by Jaren Wilkey via Wikimedia and a CC license

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News

Trump’s Coalition Is ‘Kaput’ — Midterms Threaten to Be ‘Brutal’: Columnists

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April 16, 2026

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The coalition that united to put Donald Trump back in the White House in 2024 is “kaput,” and with a president polling even worse than at this point in his first term, the November midterms are threatening to be “brutal” for Republicans, argue Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic.

“A shocking number of the president’s supporters have turned against him,” the columnists write.

“When Trump opens his mouth, three-quarters of what he says is stories, lies,” Tomas Montoya, a Trump voter, told The Atlantic outside a popular Hispanic grocery store in Casa Grande, Arizona.

“Montoya voted for President Trump in 2024, but now, well, frustrated doesn’t begin to cover how he’s feeling. The president is bragging about the economy, even though everyone Montoya knows is hurting; he promised to stop wars, but started one in Iran,” The Atlantic notes. “He’s planning to vote in the midterm elections this fall. But he may not choose a Republican.”

Some Trump voters, like Montoya, the columnists explain, sound “anxious, and a little regretful about how they voted two Novembers ago.”

They describe some of Trump’s “fanboys in the libertarian-leaning manosphere” as “baffled by his actions on the Epstein files, immigration, and now Iran.”

Religious conservatives “have been criticizing their once-unassailable leader after he posted a photo on social media of himself as Jesus and attacked the pope, calling the first American pontiff ‘WEAK on Crime.'”

Some battleground Republican operatives would prefer the president not campaign “too hard” for their candidates.

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

How bad are the midterms expected to be for the GOP?

“Almost every new poll is a red flag for Republicans,” they write. “Independents, young voters, and Latinos—groups that were crucial to Trump’s win in 2024—aren’t in the bag anymore. Even non-college-educated white Americans, once the president’s strongest group, have turned on him, according to a CNN polling average.”

One 61-year-old Democrat who opted to vote for Trump in 2024 hoping he would bring down high prices says she is poorer today than she was two years ago.

“High gas prices mean that she is staying home more often—skipping Bible studies at her church, volunteering less, and even missing exercise classes. Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran was her breaking point with the president. ‘I think that he just wants war,’ she said. ‘He’s made it plain that he’s adversarial with everybody.'”

Trump’s highly controversial AI post of himself “dressed in flowing robes, surrounded by a heavenly glow while healing a sick man … alienated the one group of Americans that has rarely left his side: Christian conservatives. The picture, declared the Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham, was ‘OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy.'”

Far-right pastor Joel Webbon, who, The Atlantic noted, opposes women being allowed to vote, said that Trump is “currently demon possessed.”

Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, whom the president has called a “tremendous athlete,” wrote that “God shall not be mocked.”

Some fundraising “plummeted” in early March after Trump launched his Iran war.

“If this is a two-week stretch, not a huge deal,” a GOP consultant told The Atlantic. “If we’re still bombing Iran in November? I mean …”

READ MORE: ‘I’m All About the Gospel’ Trump Says After Refusing to Meet With Pope Leo

 

Image via Reuters 

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‘I’m All About the Gospel’ Trump Says After Refusing to Meet With Pope Leo

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12 hours ago

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April 16, 2026

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Amid an escalating feud with President Donald Trump lashing out at the first American pope, Pope Leo XIV, and the pope promoting a pro-peace, anti-war message the president opposes, Trump is refusing to meet with the Vicar of Christ.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump declared on Thursday afternoon, despite new poll numbers that show his support among Catholics slipping after his attacks on the pontiff.

Earlier on Thursday, Pope Leo had posted to social media a message some thought was meant for the president.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” he wrote.

Asked specifically about it, Trump did not answer directly, instead telling reporters that it’s “very important that the Pope understands, very, very important…Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also told reporters, “I’m all about the Gospel. I’m all about it as much as anybody can be!”

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

 

Image via Reuters

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Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

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12 hours ago

on

April 16, 2026

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Conservative Christian evangelist Franklin Graham is rushing to President Donald Trump’s aid, defending an image the president posted that appeared to depict him as Jesus Christ, “bathed in divine light and clad in religious robes,” as The New York Times described, and one of the president with Jesus Christ. One conservative Christian broadcaster isn’t buying Graham’s defense.

“I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ—that would certainly be inappropriate,” Graham wrote on social media on Thursday. “I’m thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing—he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post.”

“I think this is a lot to do about nothing,” Graham continued, noting that there were no halos, crosses, or angels in the illustration. “There is so much ill-intended speculation. I think his enemies are always foaming at the mouth at any possible opportunity to make him look bad.”

He went on to defend an image Trump also posted that appeared to show him being embraced by Christ.

READ MORE: Trump Axes Catholic Charities Funding for Migrant Kids Amid Pope Feud: Report

“I like the fact that this is a picture of Jesus whispering in his ear, or at least His hand on his shoulder, guiding him,” Graham declared. “We all need that—we all need to be listening to Jesus…Remember, President Trump didn’t draw this, he didn’t create it, he reposted it on his social media because he thought it was nice—I would have to agree.”

Graham called Trump the “most pro-Christian, pro-life president in my lifetime,” and suggested the Pope should “thank the President for his efforts to protect religious liberty for Catholics and people of all faiths.”

Erick Erickson, a conservative evangelical talk radio host and political commentator once described as the “most powerful conservative in America,” blasted Graham’s remarks.

“This is embarrassing,” he wrote in response to Graham’s post.

He was not alone in his condemnation.

“So laughable it’s sad. Sycophancy comes to the Graham name. Deeply unserious,” declared Professor Matthew Boedy, who focuses on the rhetoric of religion.

Republican former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally, also blasted Graham.

“Franklin Graham making excuses for Trump posting himself as Jesus is one of the worst things I’ve seen,” she wrote. “Trump posted his blasphemous picture with Satan added above him, the original picture had a soldier. If you search ‘pictures of Jesus’ most of them show Jesus in white with a red robe over his shoulders. Franklin Graham of all people, who is frequently at the WH and with Trump, should be leading Trump to be a Christian, NOT telling other Christians that Trump did nothing wrong when he committed blasphemy.”

READ MORE: Why Trump Might Want to Try to ‘Usher’ Alito Into Retirement: CNN Analysis

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

 

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