Sorry. I don’t believe him.

\”I know everyone is speculating about my excommunication, and thinking there must be more to the story that I am not telling. Well I am the only one who can ever openly say what went on in the court that day, but I will say this, and say it by swearing on the Bible and everything that is good and holy on this planet: There was NO talk of ANY form of personal transgression AT ALL during my disciplinary council. The \”other\” charges that Frank Davie casually broke confidence and slyly shared with the Associated Press to create this assumption was simply that I do not honor my priesthood (by not attending church meetings) and do not honor my temple covenants (by choosing to remove the sacred garment.) The entire meeting was about the calendar, and after I spoke, all the questions that were asked by the council ALL had to do with the calendar. Just for the record, my reasons for leaving the church had nothing to do with transgression.\”

and this quote:

\”For those who doubt this effort, or think I got what I deserved – there is so much more to the story that I can not share publicly – and when the entire story is told you will realize what a pile of [word not allowed to be posted on USA TODAY] this whole situation really is. Just to set the records straight, producing the calendar was never about money for me. I have made $0 from it. My financial Jewish partner is completely about the money, as he should be. My part has always been the creative and message. And as far as I am concerned, the project has done what it set out to do – to create dialog and offer a different perspective, and to make people think, laugh and talk about the world we live in. I never thought in my wildest dreams that the church would come after me like they have. I thought for sure they were smarter than that. I suppose they wanted to make an example of me, but all it did was make the project more popular – and famous.
It would be ignorant of me to say that the excommunication did not give me a boost – Oh my Gawd, the doors it has opened not only for me, but for the entire project. I have been interviewed by celebrities, been in national magazines, television, radio, etc. However, it was never my intention to make this project about me. I wanted to ride the back seat and just steer the project, but that didn\’t happen. When the calendar came out last year, that was the scariest thing I ever did. Within 24 hours of launching, I was on MSNBC and from there the rest is history. I almost canceled the interview because I knew I was setting myself up for a [word not allowed to be posted on USA TODAY] storm of criticism and doubted myself that I might not be strong enough to handle it. I learned real fast that everyone has an opinion, and the letters I get from Republican TBMs are Nazi scary! The support has outweighed the criticism and because of that, I have moved forward with no fear.
This BYU situation caught me off guard more than the excommunication, mostly because I finished my coursework back in 2002. I never had the money to finish my religion classes until recently, and I took them independent study so I could finally get my degree. I have not been a full-time student since 2002, and did not realize that my status in the church would have any effect on the posting of my degree. I have not read anything in the honor code about that – only things that apply to registered students. Why did they let me walk? Why did my adviser give me the green light only for Mr. Finlinson to take it away after the fact? We are talking about 32 days from the excommunication to the actual graduation. I applied for graduation and finished my independent study classes before the drama with the church even took place. The crazy thing is I was not ex\’d for anything that is in violation of the so-called honor code. When I was as student there, I was an active, tithe paying member.
By the way, I still owe $8,000 on my stafford loans outside of the pell grants Uncle Sam gave me to attend BYU. I never really wanted to go there. I was pressured to go there like most of the kids. Had I known then what I know now, I would have the knowledge to make a better choice and would have attended a different school that does not discriminate based on religious affiliation. I was so indoctrinated that I had no idea what I was signing when I signed the honor code agreement. \”

So this leaves me with more questions than I\’m able to answer. If the church wants to excommunicate someone, I guess that\’s their prerogative. What I don\’t understand is the legal situation. I hear some people saying BYU is privately funded and can pretty much do anything they want, as long as it\’s stated in a contract such as the honor code. But what about the fact that some students attend on the basis of government subsidence such as Pell Grants? If Chad was a recipient of the grants, doesn\’t this equate to BYU receiving money from the government?
I think BYU is walking a fine line with the whole separation of Church and State thing. If BYU is truly private, then all funds should be privately funded. What adds more confusion is that BYU has a policy of accepting non-members as long as they agree to abide by the honor code. Since Chad is technically not a member any longer, does he have right to request his degree as long as he states he will abide the honor code for a short interim? If BYU then denies his degree, wouldn\’t this be considered religious persecution?
All in all, without knowing all the facts and just going simply off of what I know, I think BYU has made a mistake.

I am not sure what additional details I can give as it is mostly second hand information I gather from talking with friends from surrounding wards. Of my 6 close friends I talk to who all live in different stakes in the surrounding area they have all reported similar attendance drops. As I said some hold leadership positions so they focus more attention on the matter. I have no idea what is causing it so it is not obvious to me. Perhaps the issue is hiding in plain sight. I do not really put much attention towards it because it is outside of my stewardship and calling.

My calling is a temple ordinance worker (past 4.5 years) and I have noticed a stark decline in temple attendance from both patrons and workers. There was a new temple dedicated a few years ago and we had a significant impact (lost 3 of 14 stakes from our temple district). However within about 6 months and after significant focus by the Stake Presidents on the temple we were back to our previous number of workers and patrons. However, over the last 8 months I have noticed a steady decline from about 40 workers on my shift to about 15 with a similar decline in patrons. I know everyone bellyaches about the price of gas and I have seen less cars on the road. Perhaps it is a case of ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc’ or ‘After this therefore because of this.’

I wish I knew what to do to encourage more of my friends to return. I greatly enjoy their company and still do many activities outside of Church with some but you know how life is with getting busy and people just drift away so I have not seen some for a while. I am just sad that I rarely see a lot of my friends at Church or the temple anymore.

Where Calendar Guy ran afoul of the system is that he couldn’t get a degree as an independent study student, and he couldn’t get an ecclesiastical endorsement as a degree-seeking undergraduate. He knew he couldn’t get an endorsement to take classes on campus, so he tried to slip in the back door by earning credits in a way that didn’t require an endorsement. But to apply for a degree, he still had to change his status to degree-seeking. With that status, he had to have an ecclesiastical endorsement, not only to take classes, but also to get a degree.

It was a catch-22 that he should have foreseen. My suspicion is that he knew exactly what he was doing when he enrolled for those independent study courses, and deliberately turned it around into a catch-22 for the university. If BYU granted his degree, he could laugh up his sleeve about having pulled one over on the university in granting a degree to someone actually ineligible to graduate. If they declined to grant the degree, he could run to the press with the sad story about he earned his degree only to have it denied and get lots of free advertising for his calendar from media outlets only too happy to plug his calendar under the guise of a news story (see link in comment #110 for an example).

Is it correct to paraphrase BYU’s police as: “You don’t need an ecclesiastical endorsement for independent study, but if you use those credits towards a diploma, then you do?”

To go back to my comparison with a good voucher program, I’d want Catholic schools to still hire nuns, or whoever they want, but I wouldn’t let them accept state vouchers if they employed a religious test against prospective or current students. In the same way, BYU can hire who they want, but they can’t discriminate against students receiving federal grants on the basis of religion.

byu is not on an eternal welfare mission. it is a university with a football team for crying out loud. not supporting members who leave the church may be consistent with the church’s mission, but i dont see how that is beneficial to byu as an academic institution.

i went to byu, can byu come get my credits and take them away? can they take yours away if you forget to do your visiting teaching next month? do you have a one year supply of wheat? if not, please surrender your diploma instantly.