Protestors arrested at BYU

The Soulforce Equality Riders visited BYU's campus this week. They are visiting conservative colleges across the country to protest the treatment of gays. Here's an article about the visit from today's Salt Lake newspaper.

Five BYU students participated in the demonstration and were arrested for trespassing(I guess). I don't really understand how they were trespassing at their own school, but I don't really know the legalities of it all. I thought it was interesting how the Honor Code deals with homosexuality, I don't remember ever reading it before. The Honor Code says, "Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the University and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code." So I would have gotten in trouble for even saying that it's ok to be gay. No wonder I lived in fear of getting kicked out while I was there.

This story appeared in the Utah County section of the newspaper on Tuesday. It deals more with the aspects of being gay and a BYU student. It quotes a story recounted by a gay student that after an accident his mother told him, "it would have been better if God had taken [you] from the Earth rather than leave [you] here to be gay." This is the kind of thing gay Mormons have to deal with. Luckily my mom would never say that to me, but she definitely isn't ok with it. But I'm glad that Soulforce brought attention to BYU's discriminatory treatment of gays.

Spring Break '06 "wooh, wooh"

I had a great trip to D.C. for Spring Break. It was a lot of fun to be able to spend so much time with Kip. I was really glad that we went. Sarah was our gracious host again. Kip and I drove down in my car and Brad, Erika and Lindsey drove in Erika's car. Julie flew down on Sunday so we met up with her in D.C. The weather was bad most of the drive to D.C. so that wasn't fun. When the storm hit in D.C. it blew off a lot of the cherry blossoms that were in bloom, but they were still pretty when we were walking around the monuments. Monday night we went to eat dinner in Dupont Circle at Front Page. While we were eating dinner, our friend Ryan called to tell us that another med student in our class has been missing since last Friday. None of us are really good friends with him but we all know him and have spoken to him before. We were all pretty freaked out and it was hard to think about anything else all night and we kept talking about it the rest of the trip. We called all our other friends to see what information we could find out. We tried to get on with our night, so we headed to Buffalo Bills to play pool and watch the NCAA championship game.

On Tuesday we went to the Holocaust Museum which I hadn't been to for eight years, so it was touching to see everything again. We ate lunch at the Old Post Office and then went to the Spy Museum. It was interesting but I don't think it was worth 15 dollars when there is so much else to do in D.C.(like shop at H&M which I didn't get to do). Dinner was in Dupont Circle at a Mexican restaurant. I was impressed because they had some Spanish dishes and the first song I heard there was "Las de la Intuicion" by Shakira. We had lots of margaritas and sangria. After dinner we headed to a bar in Adam's Morgan and had some "booty fun, booty fun" before heading to another bar for karaoke.

On Wednesday Kip and I were supposed to wake up to stand in line for tickets to the Washington Monument. I was too tired though so we stayed in bed. So I still haven't been up that yet. We had lunch at Capitol City Brewing Company near Union Station. The food was delicious but the service, as we experienced throughout D.C., was awful. After lunch we began our marathon walk from Union Station to the Capitol to the National Museum of Natural History to the Jefferson Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial to the Vietnam Memorial to the World War Two Memorial and then back to the metro near the Washington Monument. It was a sunny but windy day and we were all tired and freezing by the end. Still the museum was interesting and it was fun to see all the memorials again. We went to dinner at Rhodeside Grill, Julie's favorite D.C. establishment. We had a large group of Julie's friends from med school, college and high school. Kip and I went to bed early while the rest went out to a club in Georgetown.

Thursday we packed, ate lunch at Cosi and headed back to Columbus.

Off to DC for Spring Break

Well on a sort of last minute decision, Kip and I have decided to head to our nation's capital for Spring Break with four of our friends from school. We'll see if I finally make it up the Washington Monument. Today is also the six month anniversary of our first date, so I'm excited that I get to spend it in the car with him and then in DC together. This is our first trip together so that's exciting. I'll let you know how it goes.