BYU has edited out portions of Elder Holland’s faculty address “The Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University” for its UNIV 101 class, specifically comments that criticized pride parades as well as a BYU valedictorian’s decision to discuss his sexual orientation as part of his commencement speech, the Cougar Chronicle confirmed this week.
The address is required reading for BYU’s new general education class, UNIV 101. The course is intended to provide students with the opportunity to learn more about the unique mission of BYU, the specific aims of a BYU education, and the BYU community goal of covenant belonging, topics discussed directly by Elder Holland in his speech in 2021.
The talk is controversial among LGBTQ+ activists for Elder Holland’s use of a metaphor referring to the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, in which workers performed the construction with “a trowel in one hand and a musket in the other,” prepared to defend the structure from hostile mobs who might wish to prevent its completion. Elder Holland asserted that faculty at BYU should be ready to fire their muskets in defense of church doctrine, while warning that there was a risk of “friendly fire” harming those who led astray by worldly deceptions, including those “confused about what so much recent flag-waving and parade-holding on this issue means.”
The Cougar Chronicle has previously reported on the backlash to the address by LGBTQ+ activist groups, who assert that the “musket fire” metaphor provokes violence directed at LGBTQ+ students and “perpetuates harm and undermines efforts to foster a sense of belonging.”
While several groups launched petitions in the past few weeks requesting that the university remove the address from the course requirements, the excerpts were not removed from the talk in response. The course material including the edited address, a volume entitled “Envisioning BYU Vol. 1: Foundations and Dreams,” was published in December of 2023. The text can be compared to the full, unredacted version available on the BYU Speeches website.
The Cougar Chronicle reached out to BYU with questions regarding the editing process and the rationale behind the removal of the various portions of Elder Holland’s talk, but the university did not respond to requests for comment.
Written by: The Cougar Chronicle
The Cougar Chronicle is an independent student-run newspaper and is not affiliated with Brigham Young University or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
