We'll Make the Great Escape!

Last week my diploma arrived. I am free. I have to admit, there is a part of me that deeply regrets finishing my education at BYU. If I were to advise any gay student still there, it would be to transfer. Transfer! Get the hell out of there! It's not that I didn't enjoy my time there during my last year. Frankly, it was an amazing year. And I had nothing but support from the other students, who knew what was going on. I would not have graduated without their support, because I was pretty open about things. But in the end, I was not believing, planning, or acting the way that Thomas S. Monson thought I was, and his signature and note of approval are on my diploma because he is President of the Board of Directors. I have conflicted emotions about that.

Don't get me wrong. I think that Thomas S. Monson's expectations for graduates, including that they abstain from advocating homosexuality, are completely and utterly unfair, unethical, and ungodly. There is a reason BYU is on the top 10 list of most discriminatory schools. I believe that students should be able to date whom ever they want, fall in love with whom ever they naturally fall in love with, and marry whom ever they fall in love with. I believe the same set of behaviors should be expected of all students, and that a subset of students should not have additional restrictions placed on certain behaviors simply because they are gay. But maybe that means I should have gone completely public about my decisions at the cost of a Monson-signed diploma and instead graduated from a more ethical institution.

Whatever decisions I should have made, I must have made some decisions right because things have really worked out for me. I am so happy! I live in a place that I love. Opportunities I'm seeking are working out. I'm in love with the most wonderful man ever. So because of where I am, and how wonderful it is to be here, I'm not sure I can really have too many regrets. I made it out of BYU alive, I made the great escape!