Posted on 12/11/2011 12:56:43 PM PST by Colofornian
Updated. The first time I read this, I thought it was parody: Independent Brigham Young University publication The Student Review reports that BYU-Idaho has banned skinny jeans as part of its honor code guidelines against "form-fitting clothing." Skinny jeans: trousers of the devil? Don't tell Mitt Romney.
"It's useful for us to realize that fashions will come and go. There will always be some tempting new style," University Vice President Henry J. Eyring explained in September. Fun fact: According to Wikipedia, Eyring is a member of Romney's extended family.
Anyway, I'm 95% sure that this Student Review article is not a joke, just a straightforward dispatch from the strange, sexless world of Mormon higher education. There's a 5% chance I just don't get Mormon humor, though.
Update: BYU-Idaho's skinny jeans kerfuffle is, indeed, real. After I requested a comment from Eyring, he responded twice, and looped his two BYU-Idaho colleague Kevin Misayaki into the conversation.
from: Henry Eyring to: Maureen O'Connor cc: Kevin Miyasaki date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 5:43 PM subject: RE: Gawker Media Question: Skinny Jeans
Dear Maureen:
I appreciate your interest in BYU-Idaho. I'll share your questions with my colleague Kevin Miyasaki, who will know the answers better than I.
Thanks so much,
Henry
from: Kevin Miyasaki
to: Maureen O'Connor
cc: Henry Eyring
date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 6:29 PM
subject: RE: Gawker Media Question: Skinny Jeans
Dear Maureen:
Thank you for your concern and interest. I hope my response satisfies your question, and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
We have not identified "skinny jeans" as a specific violation of the dress and grooming standard. We are aware of the incident and the Student Honor Office is working with the Testing Center to address the issue.
The wording in the BYU-Idaho dress and grooming standard regarding formfitting clothing is as follows: "Clothing is inappropriate when it is sleeveless, strapless, backless, or revealing. It should not have slits above the knee or be formfitting."
The foundation of this standard comes from "For the Strength of Youth" which states, "Immodest clothing includes short shorts and skirts, tight clothing, shirts that do not cover the stomach, and other revealing attire. Young women should wear clothing that covers the shoulder and avoid clothing that is low-cut in the front or the back or revealing in any other manner."
The Testing Center has not made any new standard, nor has there been a ban of a particular piece of clothing. The effort of the Testing Center as well as with other employees and students is to encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code.
I hope this is responsive. If not, please feel free to contact me.
Kevin Miyasaki
Student Services and Activities Vice President
200 Kimball
Rexburg, ID 83460-1640
from: Henry Eyring
to: Maureen O'Connor
date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 6:35 PM
subject: RE: Gawker Media Question: Skinny Jeans
Dear Maureen:
Purely by chance, after sending my earlier message I listened to a 1973 Ricks College/BYU-Idaho devotional address by my father, Henry B. Eyring, in which he articulates our rationale for modesty in dress. If you click on the attached link, search for 1973 addresses, and scroll down to 28 August, you can get the audio recording of the talk. His remarks about dress and grooming appear about ¾ of the way through. I hope that you find them helpful.
Thanks again,
Henry
http://web.byui.edu/devotionalsandspeeches/speeches.aspx
Not what I expected to see on a Sunday afternoon.
Of course it is. But we have some moral degenerates here masquerading as conservatives.
No one here really has a problem with the school enforcing its dress code.
This story is a story only to illustrate the legalisms in Mormonism.
Saundra don’t try to pretend that the LDS church is not into legalisms. It is part of the draw, some people need someone to tell them what to do, it makes them feel better and not responsible if they believe in false teachings.
The Associated Press
Published: 12/08/11
BOISE, Idaho — A spokesman for Brigham Young University-Idaho says a campus department crossed the line when banning students from wearing skinny jeans while attempting to carry out the Mormon school's dress code.
Spokesman Andy Cargal says at least one student was turned away from the university's testing center because their pants were deemed too tight.
Cargal says university policy does prohibit students from wearing form-fitting clothing, which is in line with the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But the school doesn't have a rule explicitly banning “skinny jeans,” with their ultra-slim silhouette.
The university in Rexburg started to receive student complaints last week about a sign posted at the testing center prohibiting skinny jeans. Cargal says university administrators contacted the department and the sign was taken down.
The "skinny jeans" are pretty bad, especially when guys wear them!
The Russian Orthodox Church where my wife and I sometimes go (neither of us is Russian, but she’s an Orthodox, and that’s the only church around us) discourages wearing jeans to church.
Listen. I'll all for informal discouragement of lots of things...including some wardrobe choices.
Big difference 'tween informal discouragement and outright legalistic bans announced. Once you start naming wardrobe choices in official bans, there's nowhere to easily draw a line. And then it gets constantly updated according to the O.W.P.C. (Official Wardrobe Police Committee)
C'mon. These are religious adults.
Gulp!
uhhhhh...nuthing.
Why? Because we're not as pharisaically legalistic as you?
(Remember. Jesus told the Pharisees they were not "legitimate" children of God in John 8. Religious legalists masquerade as God's people. And hey. The Pharisees, I'm sure were pretty "conservative" wardrobe-wise. To you, they would be "model religionists.")
A written dress code? Where? What does it say?
If it's unwritten. So what? An unwritten policy can't be legalistically forced. See my post #27 where I said informal discouragements are fine on LOTS of things; including wardrobe choices.
IMO, the difference is whether it’s enforced or not. In terms of church or college, would they send people home if they ‘violate’ the rules?
Sorry. Per the Lds "Church Handbook of Instructions" if you wear your own self-produced temple garments or temple ceremonial clothing into the temple, you are breaking the Mormon gods' policies. No "Free agency" garments allowed.
nothing new except the mormon angle.
Teachers used to complain about girls wearing jeans that looked like they were spray painted on 52 years ago!
Are you in your 30s? 40s? 50s? Married? Then what are you doing tracking "a number of girls" per certain areas of their bodies? Have trouble much with seeing people above the belt? Have trouble much treating girls the way you would want your daughter(s) treated by men?
Gotta wonder if Santa Claus knows about your "naughty" eyes as it relates to your "takeaways" as to how you sum up teen girls these days. God? (We already know He knows)
Well, if you try to put 10 pounds of s**t in a five pound bag you would look like some of those fatgirls squeezed into skinny jeans.
It's my contention that there were just one too many fatgirls who did this and paraded in front of the WRONG people, that is, people with ANY sense of taste.
If it were really a problem with their faith, this wouldda happened MONTHS/YEARS ago.
FATGIRLS running amok. They HAD to have been a really BIGFATSALE on skinny jeans at the local Target/that kind of store. !!!! There oughtta be a law: NO FATGIRLS in skinny jeans! There oughtta bwe a law!
Girls PROBABLY have been trying to show too much of their bodies to guys since the beginning of the human race. Girls did/do/will ALWAYS do this because they are young and s-t-u-p-i-d. They try to attract the guys who are just at young and s-t-u-p-i-d.
That's what DADs are for, to make sure that their teenage daughters are dressed to please NO ONE but dad. He's GOTTA be the Hammer. Girls without dads are DOOMED.
Okay, that's an exaggeration...but not much.
“Thank you for post #4. Good for you and good for BYU and the Mormons. Why would anyone be against this?”
Yea! ANYWAY!
If the young adults have been raised to never think for themselves,
but to accept whatever the cult says is true, then why should this
be any exception!
Especially those young women, who are groomed to breed here to
prepare for a goddess future that involves being pregnant eternally
to populate her god-husband’s new planet. Why should they have any
independent experience in decision-making. That would ruin the
whole indoctrination!
I agree with Saundra. Why would anyone be against this?
You are required to meet certain requirements in order to obtain a TR
How well do your high priests treat long haired men wearing shirts without ties in you sacramental meetings.
I think what is being lost here Vlad is that it goes beyond "just a dress code" and into part of the legalistic requirements for exaltaton. President Spencer W. Kimball stated, "I am positive that personal grooming and cleanliness, as well as the clothes we wear, can be tremendous factors in the standards we set and follow on the pathway to immortality and eternal life"
Secondly, the 'dress code' is manipulated as a tool of member control. Consider - Jesus wouldn't be allowed to even serve the mormon version of communion in today's mormon services - because of his grooming.
If they are raised in such good Mormon homes and follow the Mormon church like their parents have raised them, why would the university in Rexburg put the sign up and then remove it, due to protest?
You’d think that every good Mormon child that is sent off to school by Mormon Mom and Mormon Dad would never even consider doing anything that wasn’t wholesome and delightful in the eyes of the prophet. The sign would be unnecessary, because there wouldn’t be any skinny jeans on campus. And even if the sign did go up, it would have stayed up, no words of protest would have arisen and the good Mormon children would have formed a circle and clasped hands around it, singing the praises of modesty and legalism, in Joseph Smith’s exalted name.
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