A Display of Public Expression at BYU

So, Soulforce made their way to BYU this week. It was probably the most controversial thing to happen on campus since women were aloud to wear pants. There were more security and admin people than I have ever seen for an event on Brigham Square.

The first day they came on campus and just talked to students one-on-one. As per BYU policy, they were not allowed to make speeches or hand out literature, or get in any group that was so big as to block traffic flow (which was based purely on their whims). Basically, anytime a group got to the point of having enough people to have a real discussion, the campus security and administration made them break it up. Pres. Samuelson, whom they wanted to meet with, was, as usual during such events, out of town. They also had a pre-planned act of rebelion, (they tried to give speeches) during which five members were arrested and released back at their hotel. It was very staged and kind of lame. But overall it drew a lot of students, and created a lot of good discussions. Basically every BYU student I ever knew of, or suspected of being "afflicted with SSA" or "gay" or "gender confused (which term was quite popular at the last general conference)" was there; some were vocal, some were not. Matt Kulisch (a current BYU student/gay male), whom I think pretty much everyone that reads this blog knows, was there. He was kind of the star of the show. Pinetree was rather vocal, so was Tom the Oregonian. It was lots of fun.




Haven discussing with students


Small groups of people discussing things















Matt with some of the Soulforce riders



That evening they had a rally/protest/whatever-you-want-to-call-it at the Kiwanis Park. They started off with some singing, which Pinetree pointed out was not very well targeted to their audience. Maybe if we were a group of kumbaya singing, evangelicals, it would have gone over better. But it was alright, and it didn't last too long. After the singing a bunch of speeches were made. Most of the speakers were local BYU alumni. Many of whom told the typical stories of their strained years of (mostly) self-repression at BYU. Some of them got real upitty, and started spurting out stupid slogans like, "I'm queer, and I'm here." Once again, they missed their target audience. According to their press releases they were trying to foster discussion amongst current BYU students, and let them know that they are loved and cared for. However, most of the gay, current BYU students that I spoke to said that they had to take everything that was said with a grain of salt. Matt gave an excellent speech. It was powerful, personal, emotional, and free of the usual "BYU is evil" rhetoric. He knew his audience. Then someone finally decided to target their audience, and they sang they sang "I Am a Child of God," with a few word changes. The word changes were funny the first time, but by the end of all of the verses, I was really wishing they would have just stuck to the regular words, or just changed one of the verses. There were also a few people protesting against Soulforce.















Kumbaya















Irish drinking song




















Matt, giving the best speech of the night















Large protestor getting angry















Large protestor shouting (notice the back of the BYU security guy that you will also see later)














Large protestors family members, after they'd quieted down















Smurf wasn't quite sure wether to support the rally or the protestors















The logical protestor, who played MOTAB and handed out flyers wondering why Soulforce didn't want to tolerate his LDS beliefs (which, they actually did a fairly good job of, it was mostly the ex-Mormons that were really inflamatory).



Today (April 11) they had a procession from the Provo Temple to the "The World is Our Campus" corner of Bulldog and Canyon Road. Forty people carried lillies representing GLBT (mostly just gay) BYU students and LDS Church members that had committed suicide. They marched in a quite solemnity. It was supposed to be kind of a funeral march, and it felt very much like one. At the corner, after giving interviews and being photographed, they made a little border of potted lillies. Then they read the name and stories of each of the represented persons. After each story was read the marcher would walk on to BYU campus property, lay down as though dead, and then get arrested by BYU security and placed in a van. It was also very staged, BYU even stopped traffic on the close side of the street, so that it wouldn't be disturbed. But despite the staged nature of it, I thought it was pretty cool. It's too bad that there were only a few actaul students there, 90% of the audience were media (which BYU informed me I was part of), maybe 5% local non-students, and 5% students. And there were probably even more BYU security personnel than there was media. I wish that there would have been more students there; overall it was a very moving memorial to those who have lost their lives in their struggle to reconcile their homosexuality with their religion.




















The Procession















Cool girl placing a potted lilly















Matt walking onto BYU property















Playing dead, and getting arrested















Into the police van




















Person representing Stuart Matis















Media















Media















Security















Security















And more security...

I've never felt so safe.

For local media coverage check out these articles (or just google soulforce byu):

Salt Lake Tribune

Deseret News

BYU NewsNet