During all the excitement yesterday about the Mormon church’s handbook update it was easy to overlook the quiet move made by Brigham Young University’s infamous Third Reich Secret Service committee known as The Honor Code Office. The church owned university claims that the Honor Code was updated to be in line with the new handbook. The new handbook redefines disciplinary councils to be called “membership councils”, and clarifies that LGBTQ+ members may be subject to restrictions of membership, naming transgender persons as prime candidates for a council. But everyone knows that still means “a court of love” where they will be subject to harsh restrictions as punishment to shame them in their communities and increase pressure on them to conform.

What the Honor Code Office did was simply delete the section on “homosexual behavior”, which stated that “homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code”. While “same-gender attraction” is not an Honor Code violation, all forms of physical intimacy “that give expression to homosexual feelings” are, according to the previous language. In it’s place it simply says not to have sex outside of heterosexual marriage. Many students took to the internet to celebrate saying that they could now openly date on campus without fear of being turned in to the Mormon S.S. for being gay.

After several hours of student celebrations online, the school then attempted to clarify what the changes meant claiming there was a “miscommunication” and that each case will be treated individually as far as disciplinary measures are concerned. Furthermore, that “even though we have removed the more prescriptive language, the principles of the Honor Code remain the same”.

Many students have called the Honor Code Office for clarification and received varying responses about worthiness standards and chastity. The school, however, has completely ignored all the social media inquiries about what exactly the new stance really is. How can you remove an entire section of the Honor Code and then claim it still applies? Confused? It’s just the church gaslighting again.

It didn’t take long for a fundamentalist Mormon to create a twitter account that advocates for “Making BYU Great Again” by reinstating the homophobic policy. Sadly, the twitter account as of yesterday already had 140 followers espousing the same hateful rhetoric that got the church from the highest levels to push its members to fight for Prop 8 in California to not recognize anything but heterosexual marriages. The Mormon Church for some reason really likes to give the appearance of making progressive changes while reinforcing their 19th century view of the world and pressuring its members to conform against their better judgement.

My fear about the deletion of the code and the clarification that nothing has changed will cause a lot more unnecessary pain. Students who begin to live their lives more confidently, openly, and truthfully, can still be turned in by their fundamentalist Mormon or homophobic roommates and face disciplinary actions that could derail their education. There are lots of stories online from people who tell how their lives were ruined because of unproven allegations against them that got them kicked out of school as the Honor Code Office follows the spirit to determine if someone is telling the truth or not. And not just derailing education, but outing them to their families before they’re ready, facing “membership councils”, and furthering the depression epidemic that already exists amongst the LGBTQ+ community. I hope this will not be the case. But I was a Mormon for nearly three decades and attended BYU for a semester. I don’t have much faith in the institution doing the right thing because it’s always one step forward and two steps back.