Embarrassed for BYU

Two lists from The Princeton Review of the nation's best colleges that have come out in the past week have made me again embarrassed that I went to undergrad at Brigham Young University. BYU was again named as the country's most stone cold sober school. Drinking does go on at BYU but you have to be really sneaky about it. I usually went up to Salt Lake to enjoy my non-sober nights.

The other list which is the more important issue is that according to the Princeton Review, BYU is in the Bottom 10 among universities' acceptance of the LGBT community. I completely agree with that ranking. I had a few friends that were kicked out of BYU when it was found out that they had participated in homosexual activities. I was very careful about not revealing my sexuality all through college for fear of being kicked out and losing my scholarship. I lived in a sort of constant fear of someone telling on me. I never signed on to gay.com while at BYU because I often heard that people working for the university would put up fake profiles on the site, search for BYU students and turn them into the Honor Code office when the students were discovered. I also heard that people would go up to the gay clubs in Salt Lake and search out the cars in the parking lots with BYU parking stickers and turn the drivers into the Honor Code office for discipline. Besides the threat of being kicked out of school, there is the issue that the student body is close-minded and does not understand what it means to be gay, although there are a lot of closeted Mormons at the school. If I had the chance to do it all again I would have gone somewhere where I could have gotten the same high quality education I received there, but also be appreciated for who I am. It's been amazing to come to Ohio State where nobody cares that I'm gay even among such a conservative profession. Now my friends love me for the person I really am, not some lie I created to fit in.