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Loading ...Male calendar maker has BYU diploma yanked
10.20.2008 4:04pm EDT
(Salt Lake City, Utah) Brigham Young University has yanked the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church.
Chad Hardy of Las Vegas attended graduation ceremonies Aug. 15 after finishing up his last four units of study online in June. But on July 13, in between completing his studies and the graduation ceremony, he was excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.A Sept. 30 letter from Norman B. Finlinson, the school’s executive director of student academic and advisement services, said a nonacademic hold was placed on Hardy’s record after the church-owned university learned of the excommunication.
“If in the future you are reinstated as a member of the church in good standing, you are invited to contact my office regarding your possible eligibility for the awarding of a degree,” Finlinson wrote.
Hardy, 31, plans to challenge the school’s decision.
“I intend to fight this tooth-and-nail,” he said.
Hardy’s excommunication for conduct unbecomiong a church member was rooted in his failure to pay tithing, a lapse in other religious obligations and, according to Las Vegas regional church elder Frank E. Davie, his involvement with the 2008 “Men on a Mission” calendar.
Hardy’s calendar sold nearly 11,000 copies and features 12 returned church missionaries in mostly modest poses, minus their trademark white shirts, ties and black plastic name badges.
The calendar was intended to shake up the stuffy, cookie-cutter stereotype often associated with Mormons, Hardy said.
News reports of his excommunication helped sales of the 2008 calendar and have landed Hardy larger U.S. and international distribution contracts for the just-released 2009 edition, which carries a disclaimer that it is not directly affiliated with or endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This has to rank as one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. So, even though the young man completed his degree requirements, since he was kicked out of the church, he is not going to get his degree. Have these people lost their frickin’ minds. The things that are done to our children in the name of religion make my butt want a dip of snuff.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that the Mormon “church” is a dangerous anti-GLBT pagan CULT?? The scenes portrayed in “Latter Days” were a true, albeit MILD representation of what happens to GLBT Mormons. The aversion therapy center exists; it’s called the “Evergreen Project.” I’m surprised an intrepid reporter hasn’t exposed it before now.
The bottom line is probably money. If he’d tithed what he made on the calendar, he probably would have gotten his diploma .
Bud Clark
San Diego CA USA
Why do we respect Mormons in our Society?? Give the poor guy his diploma for crying out loud. I think their mormon underwear is sexy.. Im goin to market it to homosexuals they better change there design before the homos take over their underwear..
What does this have to do with the gay community and its issues? Another slow day at 365gay.com prompting anmother desperate hunt for “filler” however irrelevant it is to bonfide gay news.
It is along the lines of hey look everyone! shirtless Mormons and look no diploma. Can we have some “real” news please?
Apparently Brigham Young U feels that they granting of degrees is conditioned upon your satisfactory (by their standards) behavior the rest of your life. I thought that after one had paid the tuition and done the work that one had in fact EARNED the degree and it was not subject to being recalled. What BULLSHIT! I hope this kid sues and winds up bankrupting the vile school!
Having once lived in Mesa Arizona (a very LDS community) and having -as a non-mormon been targeted for conversion by the locals – I was used to the missionaries banging on the door every few days. When I finally invited a couple of these 21 year olds in and explained that not only was I not interested in becoming a member of their church but wouldn’t be welcomed there anyway because I was a gay man. My poor little Mormon boys almost fainted. While I am normally attracted to people closer my own age, these 21 and 22 and even 23 year olds were attractive in a very clean-cut sort of way. And the years on a mission peddling a bike had certainly done good things for their legs and buttocks. (Yes, I noticed! Hell, I’m only human!) Then they brought back reinforcements and tried to explain (in all earnestness) that my “lifestyle” was a sin. I explained to them that sexual repression was a bigger sin in my opinion and denial of the truth was the biggest sin of all! A couple of these boys showed real interest and curiosity and I let them come back to visit a few more times. Both of them eventually came out, and I helped them deal with the aftermath of telling their families, etc. One of them actually lived with me for over a year while he found a job and got his life back on track as a newly out gay man himself. Most of my Mormon neighbors assumed I’d corrupted this young man and were decidedly much cooler with me for the year he lived in my home. Eventually he fell in love with a doctor friend of mine and they’ve been together now over twenty years. Funny how life works, isn’t it.
Morgan: Come on give 365.com a break! You criticize one article that is not newsworthy, non-news breaking article and make no praiseworthy comments on the rest of the countless number of wonderful other articles that they publish! If the bi-line does not fancy you… THEN DON’T OPEN IT! Move on to those that interest you!
Micca and Morgan,
If this article isn’t news worthy in the current climate of religious/sexual upheaval we find ourselves in as a race, I highly recommend you rework your definitions.
Bring it Chad. Promoting and sludge hammering sexual shame within any community is not a family value.
For those bashing a non-worthy gay news article, let me just say, that for me, a recovered former Mormon (and yes, I served an LDS Mission in Argentina) who is now happily married to my husband, have two beautiful girls and fully active in the gay community – this story resonates with a lot of us who grew up under religious dogma. It goes to the point that many religious orginizations will do anything to “control” and undermine freedom of expression. Even though I am a “recovered” mormon, there are things that still bother me to this day because that indoctrination is so strong from very early childhood. If this man is getting so much grief from just putting out a calandar, think of what our gay brothers and sisters go through who are closeted and living in total fear that they too will be rejected, excommunicated, disinfranchised from their church, families, and “way of life”. When I finally took the plunge and came out, it was the last time my family spoke to me – its been 10 years now and though they refuse to talk to me, I still get the occassional knock on the door to repent, “cast off my lifestyle” and come back to the “flock”. All I do is smile, point to the large family portrait just inside the door from our wedding in Toronto and ask…you really want me to give up my family to rejoin a group of haters and politely close the door. There is relevance to telling these stories. Good for 365gay.com Side note: The hypocrisy of the mormon church kills me – they believe in polygomy…they believe it will one day be restored…but we are the ones with the “alternative lifestyle?”
It is good that they yanked his degree. Why would he go to BYU in the first place if he so completely disagreed with the tenets of the church and the practices associated with its membership. And yes, I’m a member, a return missionary, and proud of it.