Comment on Group seeks change so ex-Mormons can stay at BYU

By PEGGY FLETCHER STACK, The Salt Lake Tribune, San Antonio Express-News: World
Fri, 11/21/2014 - 6:45pm

Group seeks change so ex-Mormons can stay at BYU

Activists have formed a group called FreeBYU and sent a certified letter to church President Thomas S. Monson urging LDS leaders to update the university's honor code "to promote freedom of thought and freedom of religion." Brad Levin, who is among three BYU graduates directing the effort, has seen Mormon students who suffered a "faith crisis" lose not only their standing in the Provo school, but also their university housing and campus jobs. FreeBYU proposes that if students resign from the LDS Church, they be allowed to obtain an "ecclesiastical endorsement" from the BYU chaplain or their new religious leader and pay the non-LDS tuition to remain in school. [...] Levin argues, if Mormon students who join another church or become agnostic, yet agree to live by the honor code's other standards (no drinking, smoking, coffee, tea or premarital sex) and are willing to pay the higher non-LDS tuition, they should be able to "continue their academic progress, retain their university employment and remain in BYU contract housing." Levin, who graduated in 2011 with a law degree and a master of public administration from BYU, began to doubt his Mormon beliefs while still at the church-owned school but had to keep that fact hidden until he graduated.

 

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