BYU

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Podcast: Are Brigham Young sports controversies about sports, religion or politics?

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Podcast: Are Brigham Young sports controversies about sports, religion or politics?

I have a journalism question, one that will require some time travel. Let’s flash back to the 2021 football game between the Brigham Young Cougars and the Baylor Bears, which was played in Waco, Texas, an interesting city known to many as “Jerusalem on the Brazos.”

After the first BYU score, a significant number of Baylor students are heard chanting “F*** the Mormons!” over and over. Or maybe, since we are talking about folks from a Baptist university, the chant is “Convert the Mormons!” The chant doesn’t focus on the “Cougars,” but on BYU’s obvious heritage with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The chants were strong enough to be heard on broadcast media and, within minutes, there are clear audio recordings posted on social media.

My question, a which I asked during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in): Would this nasty, crude event be considered a valid news story? In national coverage, would the religious ties of the two schools — soon to be rivals in the Big 12 — be discussed? In other words, would this be a religion-news story, as well as a sports story?

I think it’s pretty obvious that the answers would be “yes” and, again, “yes.”

This brings us, of course, to two BYU sports stories from recent weeks — one that received massive national coverage and the other that, well, didn’t get nearly as much ink. I think it’s valid to ask "Why?’ in both cases.

Before I share some links to coverage of the two stories, let’s pause and consider this related Religion News Service report: “Nearly 200 religious colleges deemed ‘unsafe’ for LGBTQ students by Campus Pride.” Here is the overture:

Dozens of religious universities across the country, including Seattle Pacific University in Washington and Brigham Young University in Utah, were listed as unsafe and discriminatory campuses for LGBTQ students by Campus Pride, a national organization advocating for inclusive colleges and universities.

Fewer than 10 of the 193 schools on the list released Thursday (Sept. 8), were not religiously affiliated or did not list a religious affiliation, according to Campus Pride.

The lengthy Campus Pride report on BYU opens with this statement (the shorter Baylor item appears here):

Brigham Young University has qualified for the Worst List because it has an established and well-documented history of anti-LGBTQ discrimination that endangers victims of sexual assault and has resulted in a call for it to not be included as a Big 12 school.

The key word, of course, is “endangers.”


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Thinking about divided America: Our complex land is getting more secular AND more religious

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In the overheated world of political fundraising and public-relations, America remains on the verge of theocracy, with women forced into red capes and white bonnets.

That’s the view of the political and cultural left, of course. On the right there are people who are absolutely sure that the drag-queen story hours held in some public libraries will soon be required in private religious schools. (Personally, I would like to see some of the folks on the right in those zip codes head to their public libraries and propose Narnia story hours or rosary-class meditation circles. If they are refused access, then it’s time to talk to authorities.)

The bottom line is that America is a very big, complex place and what flies in blue urban zones will not work in most of the heartland. While there is plenty of evidence that the nones-agnostics-atheists side of American life is growing (it is), there are also trends on the cultural and religious right that must be considered. As GetReligion has been arguing for years, the messy truth is that the mushy middle is what is vanishing.

This brings us to this weekend’s think piece at Religion & Politics, which ran with this headline: “Why the Partisan Divide? The U.S. Is Becoming More Secular — and More Religious.”

What does that mean? Well, for starters, consider trends among Hispanic Americans. You know that top Republicans and Democrats are thinking about that, right now.

In the end, there is plenty of evidence that the warring halves of American culture are real and they are not going away. What does religion have to do with that? Plenty. Click here for a recent GetReligion look at half of that: “'Blue Movie' time again: Massive New York Times op-ed says the 'pew gap' is real and growing.”

But back to this new essay by Spencer James, Hal Boyd, and Jason Carroll, who are faculty members in Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life. Here’s a key chunk of their thinking:

The data suggest that our national divide is deeper than just knee-jerk partisanship — it involves a confluence of religio-geographic trends in the United States that all but guarantee the kind of political gridlock we saw manifest this month at the ballot box. The United States is not a purely secular nation — nor is it a fully religious one. The country stands out among its international peers as distinctly balanced. And acknowledging this reality may be the first step to burying the country’s cultural weapons of war and embracing a posture of greater political pluralism and cooperation.


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Celebrations and confusion: Reporters should ask obvious BYU questions about sex and doctrine

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I have been reading some of the news coverage of Brigham Young University’s changes in Honor Code language affecting LGBTQ students. The coverage is — #SURPRISE — both celebratory and confusing.

I think there’s a pretty logical reason for the confusion: The school’s officials are being rather vague about the changes and what they mean, in terms of day-to-day campus life and their attempts to defend the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This leads to a blunt question reporters need to ask: Since the Latter-day Saints believe they are led by a “Prophet, Seer and Revelator,” and a few church doctrines have evolved following new revelations, is anyone saying that the faith’s teachings on marriage and sexual behavior have changed?

Along with that, it really would help if reporters clearly stated whether (here we go again) students who attend BYU campuses sign — when they enroll or even at the start of each school year — a copy of a covenant in which they vow to follow (or at least not oppose) the current teachings of the LDS church? The word “vows” is highly relevant, in the history of this faith.

To sense the celebratory nature of the press coverage, read the overture of the original Salt Lake Tribune report (“BYU students celebrate as school removes ‘Homosexual Behavior’ section from its online Honor Code”).

Standing in the shadow of the iconic campus statue of Brigham Young, Franchesca Lopez leaned forward, grabbed her friend, Kate Foster, and kissed her.

The seconds-long embrace was meant to be a celebration. To them, though, it was also historic.

The two women, students at Brigham Young University, ran to that special spot on campus Wednesday as soon as they heard that the conservative Utah school had quietly removed from its Honor Code the section titled “Homosexual Behavior.” That part of the strict campus rules had long banned students from “all forms of physical intimacy” between members of the same sex.


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National Review offers in-depth look at BYU's religious freedom and media conference

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It's summer, which means that your GetReligionistas -- like many other folks -- are spread out all over the place.

One or two are outside of the United States (think rainforests) and others are on the move for family reasons, etc. In a week or so, I head over to Prague for lectures during this summer's European Journalism Institute.

Like I said, it's summer and these things happen, creating occasional gaps in what we publish.

So, instead of a Friday Five collection from Bobby Ross, Jr., let's flash back a bit to his round-up about the religious freedom and journalism event that recently took Ross, and me, out to the law school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Click here to flash back to Bobby'r Friday Five wrap on that.

In the weeks ahead, speeches and panels from that event will go online. You really, for example, want to see the keynote speech in the media track, by Emma Green of The Atlantic. Watch updated versions of this space and this one, too, as the links go live. Here is a Facebook link for the "Getting It Right" panel shown in the tweet at the top of this post.

Now, if you want to read an extended piece about this conference, click here for the National Review feature -- by Utah-based scribe Betsy VanDenBerghe -- that just ran with this headline: "Religious-Freedom and LGBT Advocates Offer Rare Lessons in Pluralism." Here is the overture:

In late June, as the United States descended into a high-combustion immigration debate marked by a degree of rancor extraordinary even for an era characterized by discord, an alternate universe quietly unfolded in which cultural-political rivals of goodwill came together to discuss an equally contentious issue: the tension between religious freedom and LGBT rights.

Resuscitating such old-school notions as common ground and fairness for all, the fifth Religious Freedom Annual Review, hosted by the Brigham Young University International Center for Law and Religion Studies in Provo, Utah, gathered legal scholars, LGBT advocates, journalists, and concerned Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders to grapple over court cases, questions about higher education and journalistic fairness, and -- surprise! -- common feelings of vulnerability.



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The Big 12 hits stop button on expansion: So ESPN avoids faith issue in new coverage?

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I grew up in Texas during the glory days of the old Southwest Conference (which was a pretty tough time to be a Baylor University fan, until the legendary Grant Teaff came along). Thus, even though I live in the heart of SEC Country, I still pay close attention to what is happening over in the Big 12 (yes, which currently has 10 members).

At the moment -- in terms of journalism -- there is much more to Big 12 gazing than watching football. Yes, there is a religion-news hook here. The question of whether the Big 12 will add new members to get back to 12 has turned, in part, into yet another battle between LGBTQ activists and allies of traditional religious groups.

Notice that I did not say this is a religious-liberty conflict.

The Big 12 is, of course, not a government agency. We are talking about a private, voluntary association of schools and, thus, the conference's leaders are pretty much free to create and tweak their membership requirements whenever and however they choose to do so. Voluntary associations -- left and right -- can define their own rules and, well, doctrines.

This brings us to the Big 12 candidacy of Brigham Young University and, in the long run, it's easy to see questions being raised about the Big 12 status of charter-member Baylor. Yes, this is another story linked to religious private schools having the right to promote and even protect the religious doctrines on which they were founded. Hold that thought.

As always, if is good to pay close attention to the ESPN coverage of this controversy. It's significant that the BYU controversy received zero ink in the most recent report on the Big 12 decision not to expand. Here is the key material from the top of that report:


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Mormonism is a religion, not just a culture

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For people serious about their faith, religious beliefs tend not only to influence other types of beliefs but they tend to be presuppositional. Believers adopt particular cultural and political beliefs because of their religious views. For example, an evangelical who believes that abortion is wrong tends to adopt cultural and political views that flow from their religious convictions. Not all evangelicals oppose abortion rights, of course, and even those that do may have developed their position on the issue apart from their religious views. But those who are pro-life tend to be so in a way that is different than those who developed a secular-minded opposition to abortion.


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