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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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Trump Doubles Down Calling Egg Prices ‘Too Low’ as Costs Soar to Record Highs

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April 18, 2025

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In the days leading up to Easter, President Donald Trump has repeatedly—and falsely—claimed that egg prices have plummeted to the point of being “too low,” baselessly citing steep double-digit declines—even as Americans face record-high prices at the grocery store.

“The egg prices are down 87 percent, but nobody talks about that,” the President said on Friday. “You can have all the eggs you want, we have too many eggs, in fact, if anything the prices are getting too low.”

Trump campaigned on the promise he would lower the price of groceries “on day one,” a promise that three months later is not only unfulfilled, but in some cases reversed: overall grocery prices have risen.

READ MORE: ‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

On Thursday, Trump claimed the price of eggs had dropped 92%, while berating a reporter and his Federal Reserve Chairman.

“The price of groceries are substantially down,” the president falsely claimed.

The price of eggs, you know, when I came in, they hit me with eggs. I just got there, I was here for one week, and they started screaming, ‘Eggs have gone through the roof.’ I said, ‘I just got here.’

“They went up 87%, and you couldn’t get them,” Trump told reporters. “They said, ‘You won’t have eggs for Easter,’ which is coming up. Happy Easter, everybody.You won’t have eggs for Easter.”

“And we did an unbelievable job, and now eggs are all over the place and the price went down 92 percent,” he claimed.

READ MORE: Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

Last week on Monday, Trump had claimed, falsely, that egg prices had dropped 79%.

Egg prices, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, “continued to climb despite recent efforts by the Trump administration to combat the shortage brought about by the ongoing bird flu with imports of Turkish eggs. The CPI egg index jumped by 5.9 percent from February and was up 60.4 percent compared to March 2024, and the average price for a dozen grade A large eggs climbed 5.6 percent to a record $6.23.”

Moe Davis, the well-known retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, and former administrative law judge, posted to social media a federal government chart of egg prices.

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Davis wrote, “the price of a dozen eggs in March was $6.23, the highest price ever recorded and 26% higher than in January when Trump took office. Of course if Trump says egg prices are down then the MAGA cult is obliged to say egg prices are down.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

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15 hours ago

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April 18, 2025

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The Trump White House is coming under fire for what appears to be an attempt to mock the U.S. Supreme Court, the facts in the case of a Maryland man wrongly deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, and The New York Times.

The White House’s official account on the social media platform X posted a “corrected” version of a New York Times story—corrections that have drawn concern and scorn from the legal community and political commentators.

“Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador,” read a screenshot of the Times’ headline.

But the White House’s version (below), complete with red ink and cross outs, reads: “Senator Meets With MS-13 Illegal Alien in El Salvador Who Is Never Coming Back.”

The White House added remarks saying, “Fixed it for you, @NYTimes. Oh, and by the way, @ChrisVanHollen — he’s NOT coming back.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) traveled to El Salvador this week and, after several days, was finally permitted to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the legal U.S. resident whom the Trump administration has admitted in court it wrongly deported. Multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, have ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return. Yet the Trump administration appears to be refusing.

Friday’s claim that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back” was taken as a serious statement of intent by some.

Attorney Aaron Regunberg wrote: “The White House is saying he’s ‘never coming back’ — they are explicitly declaring they will violate a unanimous Supreme Court order.” Calling out Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Regunberg wrote: “you said this was your red line that would trigger ‘extraordinary action.’ So…where the f— are you?”

“2 telling things here,” offered The Washington Post’s senior political reporter Aaron Blake. “1) White House crosses out ‘wrongly,’ despite repeatedly acknowledging its error in court. 2) ‘who’s never coming back’ is basically taunting SCOTUS. Signals the opposite of any intent to ‘facilitate’ his return.”

“The White House press shop lies and claims Mr. Abrego was not wrongfully deported, despite having acknowledged that fact at every single stage of the court process; at the district court, the circuit court, and the Supreme Court,” noted attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “They are openly contemptuous of the truth.”

Civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo, replying to the White House, wrote: “There is a mistake in the headline. You didn’t wrongly deport Garcia. You wrongly imprisoned him without due process. So, fix your mistake, as the courts have ordered. You don’t have to keep doubling down on bad decisions.”

Attorney Dilan Esper added, “I’ll remind you that the federal judges issuing orders see this.”

Veteran journalist John Harwoood called it, “disgusting fascism,” and wrote that “the Trump WH is garbage from top to bottom.”

Opinion writer Magdi Jacobs noted, “They’re moving from evading the judiciary to openly mocking it. This is very dangerous territory.”

Some others addressed what they appeared to suggest was the juvenile nature of the White House’s post.

“When you graduate from 4chan and land your first job at the White House,” wrote Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall.

“The Trump admin really wants to distract people from the fact that it illegally sent someone to El Salvador in violation of a court order & binding law, either out of malice or sheer incompetence. No amount of s—posting will change that,” said Reason magazine’s Billy Binion.

“This is the evil of the Trump White House,” remarked Fred Wellman, an Army veteran, political consultant, and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

Journalist and author Robert Lusetich observed: “The White House, an ever-lasting symbol of the power, dignity and greatness of the United States. Now, a trolling meme account.”

Anti-gun-violence activist Fred Guttenberg declared the White House is “staffed by pathetic punk 2nd grade pre pubescent children.”

Journalist James Surowiecki commented, “Your tax dollars are paying for this childish cr–.”

See the White House’s social media post above or at this link.

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

Published

17 hours ago

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April 18, 2025

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From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

In keeping his retribution vow, Trump in just three months—often with the use of the power of his executive orders—has targeted for retribution numerous top law firms, revoked the security clearances of dozens of top national security experts, former government officials, and former political opponents. He has targeted top universities, threaten to defund millions of dollars or more in critical research grants, and declared top news outlets CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and “illegal.”

Just days after the 2024 election, NPR reported that during the campaign, “Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.”

READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

On Thursday, Trump threatened to go after one of his top legal critics: CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit legal and ethics watchdog that has been working for years to hold him (and others) to account, often by suing.

Asked by a reporter what group he would like to see have their tax exempt status removed, Trump replied, “Well, we’ll be making some statements, but it’s a big deal.”

“They’re so rich and so strong, and then they go so bad, they’ve earned so much by being a member of this country, you know, a member of this group, this beautiful group of people in this country, and then they go and they abuse their power like that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s, you know, I think it’s very sad.”

“I have a group named CREW,” he continued. “CREW. You ever hear of it? I think it’s CREW, and they have a guy that heads CREW. It’s supposed to be a charitable organization. The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that.”

“We’re looking at a lot of things, but if you take a look at CREW, what they’ve done, and I think it was a very big abuse, but we’re going to be finding out pretty soon.”

During Trump’s first and second terms, CREW sued Trump or his administration for alleged emoluments clause violations, alleged Presidential Records Act noncompliance, and challenged some of his executive orders. It also represented voters in a lawsuit attempting to use the 14th Amendment to remove him from the ballot, claiming his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was constitutionally disqualifying.

READ MORE: ‘Full Time Babysitter’: Treasury Secretary Urges Caution After Trump Fed Chair Threat

In January, CREW was part of a lawsuit suing to “block Trump’s illegal plan to fire government workers,” and in February, CREW sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to compel transparency.”

CREW, in a statement to NCRM, vowed to continue its work.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” CREW Vice President of Communications Jordan Libowitz said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

Legal experts are blasting Trump’s threat.

“It is literally a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison for the President, VP, or any senior White House employee, to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the IRS to conduct … an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer,'” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

“The Trump administration has gone after law firms, they’ve gone after universities, and they’re now going after civil society, including groups like @CREWcrew. They want to silence any opposition to their extreme agenda,” added the National Women’s Law Center.

“President Trump is now threatening to weaponize the IRS against nonprofit organizations like @CREWcrew,” wrote Public Citizen. “He is attacking our most basic right: to say what we believe without fear of government prosecution. We proudly stand in solidarity with our friends at CREW.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Stunning Admission’: GOP Senator Says Colleagues ‘Are All Afraid’ of ‘Retaliation’

Image via Reuters

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