Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds shared a post on his official Twitter page showing his support for BYU students who lit pride colors in the ‘Y’ in the foothills near the school in order to protest the controversial changes to the school’s honor code including the removal of a statement that consisted of ‘homosexual behavior,’ and Reynolds called students’ action a ‘divine intervention.’
As you might recall, Brigham Young University decided to change the school’s honor code in February 2020 by excluding the words ‘homosexual behavior’ from it. And a few months later, the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released an official statement in which they revealed that any ‘same-sex romance’ was still a violation of the honor code.
Due to the fact that the incident is both heartbreaking and disrespectful to the students who are a member of the LGBTQ+ community and those who support the peace and the right to live equally, the students started a campaign named ‘Color the Campus’ which encouraged students to wear rainbow colors in order to express that their identity is not a violation.
After a year of the changes in the honor code, the colors of the rainbow lit up the ‘Y’ in the foothills near the BYU and authorities took Twitter to make explanations about the incident and instead of showing support for their students, they actually stated that BYU did no authorize the lightning along with stressing the fact that the letter ‘Y’ is the property of the school, therefore, using it requires permission.
Here is what they said:
“BYU did not authorize the lighting of the Y tonight.”
They added:
You can see the Twitter post below.
hey @BYU this is an opportunity for you to celebrate your LGBTQ students. they do make up ~13% of your student body. you call it vandalism, I call it divine intervention. https://t.co/MK5vh59Rra
— Dan Reynolds (@DanReynolds) March 5, 2021