THIS IS A LONG ONE

Yeah okay so today (March 4th) was Rainbow Day across the BYU/CES schools (if you don’t know, those are religious schools owned by the LDS church- yes the Mormon church- yes I am a member as well as someone trying to bring about change and live my own life according to what I know to be right in my heart)

A year ago today they took back a policy change that originally implied that queer students could date (currently not allowed) and it was an incredibly painful day for a lot of people. It felt like a slap in the face for many, and if you know how high the suic!de rate is for LGBTQ+ people in Utah you could agree this would be devastating. So today was Rainbow Day to show support and love to LGBTQ+ students and faculty. If you wanted to support you could wear rainbows and post about it on social media, just to share love. It was NOT a protest- as some people wanted to pin it as- just a show of support for those hurting.

We had a little area on the plaza by the Wilk building where pins, stickers, and bracelets were being handed out along with a quick hello we love you, and then we asked people to please leave the area after they got stuff so we wouldn’t make a gathering that might be seen as a protest and also break covid gathering rules. So that’s what rainbow day itself was on campus.

There was some anonymous homophobic flyers printed out and spread the day before hand that honestly had me in tears that said Rainbow Day was a protest and that ‘faithful members’ (completely ignoring the fact that there are SO MANY lgbtq+ active lds members but 🙄🙄🙄) should dress in BYU gear and hold up umbrellas as a shield sort of (a shield against the gay rain or whatever lmao). We tried to just ignore these flyers and not give them attention and the university did take them down because only authorized flyers are allowed on campus, that’s a big policy.

I only mention those flyers now because I want to stress that when I got on campus I saw maybe 6 people holding umbrellas (sometimes in all black like they were dressed for a funeral wth) and as sad as that was to see, I saw SO MANY PEOPLE IN RAINBOWS ALL OVER CAMPUS it was extremely clear that support and love can be found all across campus, and it was so beautiful to see and be a part of.

Flash forward to me working on campus tonight and I happen to check my Instagram at the exact right time to see that THE Y ON THE MOUNTAIN IS LIT UP IN RAINBOW COLORS. This is a HUGE deal, absolutely major. BYU is right next a beautiful mountain range, and one of the defining features of provo is a large white Y on the face of the mountain that the students built a long time ago. It gets lit up in white lights through the year for home coming, graduation and other big events, and it’s a huge landmark for the school and also Northern Utah in general.

So when I heard it was rainbow I dropped everything and ran to the top floor balcony of the building so I had a really beautiful view, it felt like such a gorgeous gift from God, I was almost crying it was so magical. I cannot stress how happy and excited I was in that moment and I’m going to remember it forever. I’m so glad I was working tonight so I could be in Provo and have access to a tall roof to see it. All my photos are really blurry but here’s this nice one from @colorthecampus on instagram:

It stayed lit for awhile but then it slowly flickered off, and then I checked social media and HOO BOY.

BYU made it a point of tweeting out that they did not authorize the lighting of the Y. The guy who organized rainbow day (colorthecampus on Instagram is the organization name and Bradley Talbot is the head of it) is the the one who did it. Students were up there holding lights together. Which is one of the most poetic beautiful things I can imagine because I’ve recently been thinking of the common scripture that’s repeated a lot in our church, ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ (Matthew 5:16) The fact that that’s been in my mind a lot recently and then to see this??? My heart is very full right now.

There’s a lot of people calling this vandalism, even though nothing was harmed at all, it was just people turning on lights, and there’s conflicting things about the legality of this. Especially when you keep in mind that other people have lit up the Y without permission from BYU, but when it was just white lights no one blinked an eye.