Violating The Code

In class this past week we discussed a lot about 19th century beliefs. There were a lot of laughs about how crazy some of the beliefs were, such as the idea of a spermatic economy and the female vital forces. However, there are no laughs coming from the BYU Men's Basketball team after their star player, Brandon Davies, was kicked off the team for violating the schools honor code by having sex with his girlfriend. One of Pat Griffin's recent blogs discusses how the LGBT community is accepted at BYU. You would think that if a heterosexual couple is punished for taking part in sexual activity, then being homosexual would be extremely frowned upon. Surprisingly it is acceptable to be homosexual. At BYU the issue is not being heterosexual or homosexual, the issue is violating the honor code. Homosexuals are welcomed as long as they don't participate in any “form of physical intimacy that gives expression to homosexual feelings.” Despite the fact that feelings of homosexuality are acceptable it would be almost impossible for anyone to come out and express their sexuality; especially after Brandon Davies dismissal. Although many people, including myself, don't agree with honor code and beliefs at BYU when it comes to sports, being it is a private school it has the right to enforce these rules. (I respect these rules as part of the Mormon religion, I just don't agree with them when it comes to sport.)

In a sense I think that the rules of the honor code are somewhat similar to those of 19th century beliefs. The theories of vital force suggest that sexuality is dangerous. In the case of BYU, sexuality IS dangerous. Students and faculty are not allowed to act out their sexuality for fear of being punished. LGBT's, although free to express their feelings, are not able to as openly as they may like. Masturbation, non-marital sex and same sex practice are all targets of reformers. This is also similar to BYU because a lot of the recent argument involving Brandon Davies is that these rules are unfair and should be changed in regards to sports teams.

Regardless of time periods, rules are set in place based on beliefs. Some beliefs involving 19th century sports seem crazy to us today. We often don't understand how people can believe that women are "eternally wounded" when they are menstruating; it just doesn't make sense. Nonetheless, it is hard for people today to understand how having sex with your significant other can be so wrong that such severe punishments are put into action. I suppose that despite the time period, different beliefs and religions have certain rules that they believe to be right. Although it seems so stupid to some people, these beliefs completely control the way people act. It will be interesting to watch new weird beliefs come and go overtime because as we see through these two examples, there are always some strange beliefs that are put in place.