Today in things we can’t believe existed: University’s ban on “homosexual acts”

Sometimes backwards policies and traditions—like segregated proms in 2013—have a way of sticking around, long after their time. The latest case is taking place at Baylor University, where this week, the school administration finally struck down a university-wide ban on “homosexual acts” from its sexual conduct policy.

The decision came after the Texas school’s leadership decided that the policy, which equated gay sex with sexual assault, incest and adultery, didn’t reflect the values of the world’s largest Baptist university.

“These changes were made because we didn’t believe the language reflected Baylor’s caring community,” school spokesperson Lori Fogleman told the Dallas Morning News. “We are pleased with the recent changes to the policy language and that it states more plainly the expectations of the university.”

Baylor University is hardly the first religious school to face this issue. Last summer, administrators at Brigham Young University, a largely Mormon school, removed Hallmark cards celebrating gay marriage from the school’s on-campus bookstore. A school spokesperson cited BYU’s Honor Code, which explicitly prohibits acting on a same sex attraction and, which up until 2007 granted the school the right to expel any students who came out.

“Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code,” states school policy. “Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.”

And BYU seems unlikely to budge on the point.

Back at Baylor, this change in school policy has been a long time coming, with one student attempting (and ultimately failing) to write the inclusion of gay students into the school’s policy back in 2013. Meanwhile, the school’s applications still define marriage as “occurring between a man and a woman,” a definition that leaves any married gay couples attempting to attend Baylor in a tough position. The university has yet to clarify their policy on the newly-legal practice.

Related:

Same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states, at last

When I realized I needed a break from college

(Image via Wikipedia)