It's like that checklist they go through. They go to BYU, they go on a mission, they get married, they have kids.
"People want to grow up going to BYU and they have this internal roadmap in their head. That's where people want you to go and that's where you want to go from a very early age. I don't want to say it's like being a Notre Dame fan and being Catholic, but it's similar. "Everybody in everybody's family went to BYU. "I think anybody else who's Mormon would tell you, going to BYU is kind of something you just grow up with," he said. In explaining why he chose to go to BYU knowing he was gay, Michael reflects on the prominence the school has for anyone growing up Mormon. Still, he never met anyone in person and his sexuality was something that remained repressed. He started connecting online with other gay people, and set up a separate email account for his communications. Things changed when the Internet finally arrived to his town when he was a high school junior. Homosexuality was not something discussed in his conservative rural town. Michael said he was not tormented during adolescence by his attraction to men, since he buried that side of himself and directed his energies to sports, where he excelled at track and football and also played on the golf and basketball teams. He had his first gay memory when he was 9 or 10. He was raised Mormon by parents who were teachers, and his dad was also the football coach at the local high school. Michael grew up in a small town in Central California, a region called the "Nation's Salad Bowl" for its agricultural industry. It's something that is not hidden and it's reiterated every year."
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"Part of the admissions process to BYU is you have to sit down with your local bishop - they call it an ecclesiastic endorsement - and signing the honor code and going over it is a part of it. "It's explained to you, you read it over, you know what you're signing and I knew what BYU would mean to me and I was aware of myself enough at that point that I knew I was not going to be an out individual at BYU," he said.
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He knew he was gay when considering BYU and knew full well what he was signing with the honor code.
Michael is an articulate and intelligent man who has thought a lot about his upbringing as a Mormon and what it meant to his sexual identity. While saying you are gay is no longer automatic grounds for a violation (it was when Michael was a student), acting on being gay is. It prohibits premarital sex and drinking, among other things. That's a no-no, according to the school's strict honor code, which all students sign. It was almost surreal to be at this party where everybody or almost everybody was gay and not have to worry about the fact that somebody from the university might find out about it."īYU has been in the news after it suspended star basketball player Brandon Davies this winter for admitting to having premarital sex with his girlfriend. "As soon as I left BYU, I decided I was finally done with the church, kind of done with the old way of doing things. He quickly met a member of the Mississippi State track team who was gay, got invited to a party and met a man whom he dated for nine months. Mississippi was much more liberal," said Michael. "You wouldn't think that going from Provo to Mississippi would be a change as far as liberal culture goes, but it actually was for me. He quickly lost his celibacy and had his first drink, making up for years in the closet and living what he calls a very sheltered life. Michael, briefly on BYU's football team and a star on its track team, graduated from the school in Provo in 2003 and headed to Mississippi State to pursue his masters. But for Michael, a 23-year-old virgin who was raised a Mormon and spent three years at BYU, Mississippi was Baghdad by the Bayou compared to Provo, Utah. "Mississippi" and "liberal" are not two words normally found in the same sentence. He has chosen to remain anonymous because he will soon be getting into private medical practice and does not this story to be the first thing prospective patients see if they do an Internet search.) Outsports has verified his identity and he freely shared details of his story. Editor's note: Michael is the pseudonym for a BYU athlete who attended the school from 2001-2003.