Christie Porter

This interactive timeline on the history of student activism at BYU is a companion piece to Salt Lake magazine’s story on the perspectives of current students at BYU on the visibility and experiences of marginalized communities at the private, religious university.

The timeline follows not only acts of student activism, but the actions, beliefs and policies that inspired that activism, as well as the fallout or institutional change as a result to protest.

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Rainbow demonstrations, civil rights clashes, rallies, walk-outs and viral TikTok accounts—marginalized students at BYU may be more visible than ever before, but can increased visibility lead to increased understanding and acceptance within the wider community? Current BYU students share their perspectives. 

On the evening of March 4, 2021, Maddison Tenney was working late deep within a ceramics studio on the Brigham Young University campus when her phone started buzzing with activity. “My phone starts blowing up,” she says. One message asked, “Are you watching?” Tenney walked outside. On the mountain above the Provo campus, the iconic “Y” lit up the night in rainbow colors. 

For Tenney, who first started to realize she was queer in 2017, it was a revelation. “The idea that someone who didn’t even know me, who loves me in such a powerful way that they’re willing to climb a mountain, really gave me the confidence and sense of belonging that I needed,” she says. 

The group Color the Campus lit up the “Y” to “show love and support for LGBTQ+ students and faculty at all CES [Church Education System] schools.” The cascade of events that led up to the rainbow-lighted “Y,” and the events that followed, demonstrate the sea of uncertainty for those navigating existence in the margins of the community.

Community from visibility

One year before, in February of 2020, BYU made a change to its Honor Code, excising an entire section from the CES handbook about “homosexual behavior.” Every student and staff member at a CES institution, such as BYU, signs the Honor Code, agreeing to obey its strictures or face discipline. The removed section of the 2020 code reads, in part: “Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. 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.”

In the wake of the change, stories started circulating of queer BYU students celebrating by coming out publicly or demonstrating physical affection—holding hands, hugging, kissing—openly for the first time. For some, the change represented a shift toward greater LGBTQ+ acceptance, even if only tacitly. The celebration was short-lived. BYU tweeted shortly after the change to the handbook, “We’ve learned that there may have been some miscommunication as to what the [2020] Honor Code changes mean. Even though we have removed the more prescriptive language, the principles of the Honor Code remain the same.” BYU representatives went on to say because dating means different things to different people, the Honor Code Office would handle any questions on a case-by-case basis. Still, some hoped, could there perhaps be room for LGBTQ+ students to date openly like their heterosexual peers? 

The answer was no. Two weeks later, CES leadership followed up with a letter, stating, “One change to the Honor Code language that has raised questions was the removal of a section on ‘Homosexual Behavior.’…Same-sex romantic behavior cannot lead to eternal marriage and is therefore not compatible with the principles included in the Honor Code.”

Then, the demonstrations began. For days, students clad in rainbows and holding signs gathered outside of the Wilkinson Student Center on BYU campus to protest what some saw as a reversal of the Honor Code change. Some students say they felt betrayed, lured into coming out or being open with their relationships, only to have that openness taken away. The swift arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns threatened to undermine the movement’s momentum, but the cat (or cougar) was out of the bag. 

BYU student and representative of Cougar Pride Center, Mariane Rizzuto, recalls how the campus landscape changed from before to after those short weeks in Winter 2020. “In my experience, everything my freshman year was really hush-hush. I didn’t know any people who were out publicly. I think a lot of [non-LGBTQ] people were less cautious about their words and might say something inadvertently homophobic,” she says. “There are definitely people who have been, and continue to be, very hostile towards our community.” But, she believes the issue is that, overwhelmingly, many people on campus never had to think about queer issues until recently.

A year to the day after the CES letter sparked protests, students were back on campus and looking up at a rainbow “Y” for the first time. BYU, once again, reacted with a tweet, saying, “BYU did not authorize the lighting of the ‘Y’ tonight.” Authorized or not, Maddison Tenney was inspired.

“I went home that night and started the ‘Raynbow’ Collective,” she says. It began as a small Instagram account with the goal of sharing the stories of queer BYU students and their experiences—“The good, the bad and the ugly,” says Tenney. “To give a more holistic view of what it’s like to be queer at BYU.” As time went on, “We started getting really big really quick,” she says.

“It’s become clear how big the community is,” says Rizzuto. “I think there was some real power in seeing a bunch of queer students gathering and resisting, on campus, very visibly.” And visibility begets more visibility. 

Raynbow Collective joined existing student groups like Understanding Sexuality, Gender and Allyship (USGA) and the Cougar Pride Center (CPC), further amplifying the visibility of BYU’s queer community as a whole. “It’s all about proximity, right?” says Tenney. “Queer folks aren’t some kind of scary monster. We’re your neighbors, family members and friends. We’re in your Relief Societies and wards. I think the increased visibility and proximity has really created a lot more openness and increased the need to address the student population as it is.” 

It’s also provided the community that students like Rizzuto had been looking for. Early in her education at BYU, the other queer students close to Rizzuto transferred to UVU. “I felt like I was suddenly alone at BYU again,” she says, then she came across an application to join CPC. After joining, she says, “I definitely think I have a community now that I never really felt like I had my entire life.” And, the newfound openness has helped other queer students find the same. “People now have access to information on where to find community in new ways.”

The push-pull of progress

(Check out our Interactive Timeline on the History of Student Activism at BYU)

The growing prominence and activity of the queer community and other marginalized groups at BYU has not come about without resistance. After the lighting of the “Y,” BYU introduced a policy on demonstrations that explicitly bans all demonstrations on the “Y” mountain, citing safety concerns, and erected a fence around the “Y.” In response, Color the Campus lit the “Y” in trans-flag colors. Then, in June 2022, queer student groups held the first BYU-approved LGBTQ+ demonstration on campus since the introduction of the policy.

In 2019, before the wider protests, BYU political science valedictorian Matt Easton spoke openly about being gay in his commencement speech. The video of his speech has 250,000 views on Youtube. BYU’s Social Science Department approved the speech beforehand, but Easton still drew the ire of LDS Church leadership. In a 2021 speech at BYU, apostle Jeffrey R. Holland posited, “If a student commandeers a graduation podium…in order to announce his personal sexual orientation, what might another speaker feel free to announce the next year until eventually, anything goes?” Holland goes on to quote former BYU president Dallin H. Oaks to implore members of BYU’s faculty and staff to show a little more “musket fire” when defending the LDS faith’s current views on sexuality and marriage. 

Easton penned a response letter to Holland in The Salt Lake Tribune, writing, “Within an hour of your remarks, three current BYU students expressed to me how unsafe and scared they felt knowing that church leaders instructed the university’s faculty to use metaphorical ‘musket fire’ to defend the ‘doctrine of the family’ and push back against LGBTQ+ inclusion.”

“I think the coalition building has been incredible. It’s been incredible to see what has been accomplished at BYU. There is so much support from faculty, staff and other students,” says Tenney. “On the other hand, facing active threats of violence has been really difficult, but, ultimately, I think the culture has been moving in a more positive way. And I think that will continue.” 

Going into BYU’s Fall 2022 term, Tenney and Raynbow Collective prepared pamphlets for the new freshman gift bags which outlined resources for LGBTQ+ students and allies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Universe initially approved the pamphlets, and Raynbow Collective paid and signed a contract with the paper to distribute the pamphlets. BYU administration decided to remove the pamphlets from the bags after Student Life had started to deliver them to freshman dorms. “That experience was disappointing and disheartening,” says Tenney. “But, it also gave us the opportunity to have a lot of really fantastic conversations about how BYU interacts with outside businesses and organizations.” Reportedly, BYU removed the pamphlets to avoid appearing as if it was affiliated with any of the off-campus groups mentioned in the pamphlets, and the university prefers students to use its new Office of Belonging rather than off-campus resources. 

“What we really wanted was for more students to have access to life-saving resources,” says Tenney. BYU’s removal of the pamphlets made headlines internationally. That spreads the word perhaps more effectively than the pamphlets themselves could have. “Even though what happened wasn’t our intention,” says Tenney, “People worldwide were able to help provide queer students with resources, and that couldn’t have happened any other way.”

“Queer folks aren’t some kind of scary monster. We’re your neighbors, family members and friends.”

—Maddison Tenney

Building Belonging   

With the growing visibility of marginalized students at BYU, their message to the university is often how the institution could build a place where all students feel like they belong. The fallout from a 2022 talk by BYU religion professor Brad Wilcox put a spotlight on how BYU deals with racism. “‘How come the Blacks [in the LDS Church] didn’t get the priesthood until 1978?’” posits Wilcox in a video of his talk. “Maybe what we should be asking is, ‘Why did the whites and other races have to wait until 1829?’ When you look at it like that…we can just be grateful!” Wilcox later tweeted an apology, “To those I offended, especially my dear Black friends, I offer my sincere apologies, and ask for your forgiveness.”

In response, members of BYU’s Black Student Union (BSU) met with Wilcox. Ron Weaver III, BSU’s VP of Activities, who was in the meeting, says, “I had to correct him.” Telling Wilcox, “You apologized for embarrassing your family and friends. That’s not directly addressing the situation.” They recommended, rather than a statement, Wilcox put out a video explaining his mistake to be seen by all Black members and students. “We said, ‘this would help a lot of people.’ It wouldn’t fix all of the issues, but that would help,” says Weaver, but the video never materialized “That’s my biggest frustration,” says Weaver. “When there’s an issue, everyone would rather be hush-hush. But when we make a mistake, we have to be held fully accountable, as Christ teaches us.” Weaver says he wants the rules to apply to everyone. “Students are held accountable, but people with titles make the same mistakes and nothing is done… If we have grace and mercy for professors, have it for students, too.”  

BYU released their report on “Race, Equity and Belonging” in February 2021. In speaking with BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) students, the report found they experienced “loneliness and isolation” because of racism at BYU. Among the report’s recommendations was to create a new office to plan and implement “initiatives to assist students and employees with issues related to race, equity and belonging.” BYU’s Office of Belonging opened its doors in September 2022. Now Weaver says he is working with students in the office to improve representation and address racial inequality within BYU’s dress and grooming standards. This comes after he was brought into the Honor Code Office for a possible violation.

In early 2018, Weaver dyed his hair blond. The Honor Code counselor told Weaver his hair was “unnatural and unprofessional.” Weaver says he tried to crack jokes because being called into the Honor Code Office is a scary thing. “When you get called to the Honor Code Office, it could mean you’re getting kicked out of school for breaking the rules.” But while blond might be a natural, and therefore acceptable, color for a white student, the feeling at the time was that it was not acceptable for a Black student. “Who are they to determine what professionalism is?” asks Weaver. “There are multiple hairstyles within our [Black American] culture that are professional, but they don’t know what they are because they don’t have the right representation.” 

The new Office of Belonging offers resources, like a way to report discrimination, and plans to implement “extensive diversity and inclusion training programs” this academic year. Before that, “they had paused all [diversity] training after Elder Holland’s talk,” says Tenney. That was August 2021. During that time, Raynbow Collective provided Equality Educator training with Equality Utah and continues providing DEI training as of March 2023. “We believe that professors and students deserve information about race and gender equality and on how to treat people with kindness and empathy.”   

BYU is on the precipice of a new era. This March, BYU announced a new university president to replace Kevin J. Worthen. C. Shane Reese, who has been academic vice president at BYU since 2019, was on the Committee on Race, Equity & Belonging, but reactions to his presidential appointment have been mixed. When BYU cancelled gender-affirming therapy for transgender clients of its Speech and Language Clinic, Reese defended BYU’s decision in a letter to the program’s accrediting body. In response to Reese’s appointment, Raynbow Collective released a statement, “All students deserve a campus that is safe, kind and full of resources. This includes students on the margins, students seeking belonging, and students unsure of where to start.”

“All students deserve a campus that is safe, kind, and full of resources.“

—Maddison Tenney, Raynbow Collective

A kinder place

On just about any social media post about being a BIPOC or queer student at BYU, you are also likely to find a commenter encouraging said students to “get out of there” or “go to school somewhere else.” While the commenters are often well-meaning, Rizzuto says those comments are also not very helpful. “It drives me crazy…We exist in every space, and telling us to just ‘go away’ is unproductive.” 

Rizzuto says it also doesn’t account for the many reasons why a marginalized student might end up at BYU in the first place or why they feel the need to stay. “Many of us felt either pressure from our family or some combination of that and financial reasons,” she explains. BYU is a comparatively cheap university to attend and even if a student wanted to transfer, not many can afford to restart their education elsewhere. 

“I have some complicated reasons why I chose to go to BYU,” says Rizzuto, whose entire family has attended BYU and whose grandfather was a BYU professor. “But one of them is definitely that I wanted my parents to be proud of me.” In the end, she says, asking people ‘why would you stay there?’ is “saying to the marginalized group that it’s all in us. It’s putting all the pressure on us instead of asking the institution to have some more respect.” 

Weaver enrolled at BYU expecting to find a diverse, open-minded community of faith like the one he had back in Chicago. What he found was a lot of ignorance of people of other races and circumstances, like single-parent households. “There were a lot of people who did not look like me, who did not understand where I was coming from.” When he saw racism on campus—with hairstyles or racial slurs—he says, “I was blindsided. I thought, ‘we’re all supposed to be people of Christ.’” 

Rizzuto recognizes that some of the concerns involve more than just BYU’s students or campus. “We’re dealing not only with BYU, but it’s reflective of  the church, which reflects the culture that most of us grew up in, and our families, and it’s just—it’s a lot bigger than us. And it’s a lot bigger than BYU in a lot of cases.” 

Given the chance, Weaver says he would still choose BYU, if he had all of the knowledge he has now. “The reason why I fight for these things is because I would love for my kids to come to BYU. I love this place. This is the place where I met my wife.” But he doesn’t want his kids, or anyone else, to go through what he’s gone through at BYU, so he’s staying to change things from the inside. “Nothing against people who have left. I want to work with them because the overall point is how do we stop people from getting treated this way?”

Faith is a reason why marginalized students first choose BYU and why they choose to stay at BYU…and a reason they want to make it better. 

“If we really deeply believed in the inherent divinity then this would be a much kinder place,” says Tenney. “I believe BYU has that capacity. I think the church has that capacity. I know its members definitely have that capacity.”  

BYU Student Snapshot

34,390 total students:

Caucasian: 81%

Hispanic or Latino: 9%

Two or more races: 4.5%

Asian: 3%

Pacific Islander: 1%

Black: 1%

American Indian: <1%

According to a March 2022 BYU ‘Campus Climate’ student survey:

Gender: 45% male, 54% female, 0.7% transgender or other

Sexual orientation: 92% straight, 5% bisexual, 2% gay/lesbian, 1% other

In a study released in 2021, of the 7,625 BYU students surveyed, 996 students (13%) indicated a sexual orientation other than “strictly heterosexual.”

More Visibility: Queer Coalition 

Cougar Pride Center: a group aiming to empower queer BYU students, celebrate progress and advocate for change through collaborative activism. Among their efforts is the Safe Housing Project which helps connect queer students with affirming housing options. cougarpridecenter.org

The Out Foundation: a group with a mission to empower LGBTQ+ students and alumni of BYU with initiatives based on the needs of students and alumni. The group also provides some guidance transferring from BYU for queer students who reach the “tipping point where they decide to leave.” theout.foundation

Raynbow Collective: a volunteer organization focused on creating and identifying safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff at BYU by developing networks with organizations, businesses, artists, and activists to support BYU students. raynbowcollective.org

USGA (Understanding Sexuality, Gender, and Allyship): an “unofficial” group of BYU students, faculty and guests who wish to enhance the BYU community by providing a safe space for open, respectful conversation on intersectional LGBTQ+ topics. The longest-running active group of its kind at BYU. usgabyu.com

More Visibility: ‘Be A Menace’

In February of 2022, a TikTok account called Black Menaces posted its first video in which Black students at BYU react to a fireside chat given by BYU religion professor Brad Wilcox. The Black Menace response video has been viewed nearly 430,000 times as of this writing, and The Black Menaces continued to make videos. They pivoted to asking questions of BYU students and posting the various answers in videos on TikTok without commentary from its members. “Who said, ‘Negroes are not equal with other races,’ Adolf Hitler or a church leader?” asks one video. (Answer: It was LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie.) 

The Black Menaces have also started a podcast, expanded into a social media coalition with chapters at universities all across the country and recently led a student walk-out at BYU as part of the nationwide “Strike Out Queerphobia” event to end federal Title IX exemptions for religious institutions. theblackmenaces.org

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On Tuesday, A Southern Utah drag group and The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Utah filed suit against the city of St. George after the city selectively applied a local ordinance to deny an event permit to a family-friendly drag show. 

Mitski Avalōx with The Southern Utah Drag Stars applied for the special events permit, back on March 3, 2023, to host the event Allies & Community Drag Show Festival at J.C. Snow Park. A few weeks later, the city denied the application under the pretenses that Avalōx had violated a St. George City ordinance that prohibits advertising for special events until the city grants a permit. 

How did we get here?

In the St. George City Council meetings that followed, members of the city council pointed out that they apply this advertising rule selectively, providing exceptions for events like Redstone Highland Games, Brooks’ Block Party and the Spring Tour of St. George. However, at Avalōx’s appeal hearing on April 11, all present City Council members still voted to deny the permit to the drag show except for Councilperson Danielle Larkin. 

At the same hearing, the council also voted down the appeal for another event permit for Indigo Klabanoff’s Taste of Southern Utah Food Festival. Avalōx referred to the food festival’s denial as collateral damage—likely alluding to Councilperson Michele Tanner’s vocal disapproval for a drag show and screening of the HBO series We’re Here during last year’s Pride celebration in St. George. 

The advertising ordinance has not been routinely enforced until recently, in part because it is unrealistic. Permits are typically not issued until the day of or the day before events, making advertising an event practically impossible.

And, after the big blowout between city leaders’ over the drag event last year, some have suggested the sudden enforcement of the ordinance is a way to allow the city to discriminate against drag shows and LGBTQ-centered events. 

The lawsuit against St. George

The lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Southern Utah Drag Stars alleges that the St. George City Council created a scheme allowing officials to selectively grant permits to favored events while denying all others. The ACLU calls St. George’s special events policies discriminatory against drag performances.

“Requiring drag performers to meet unreasonable standards to receive a permit, or denying them these permits without legitimate justification, is censorship,” says Valentina De Fex, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Utah. “Our lawsuit challenges the attempt by elected officials, who must uphold the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and Utah State Constitution, to push subjective viewpoints of what they deem appropriate.” 

“Drag is dance, fashion, and music—it is also deeply rooted in political speech—all protected by the First Amendment,” says Emerson Sykes, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “This is the latest offense in a larger pattern of attacks discriminating against gender-diverse and LGBTQ+ people and their rights in Utah and throughout the country.” As an example, ACLU points a to a recent slew of bills in six states that ban drag under the guide of protecting children from the obscene. 

“The city of St. George is violating the First Amendment rights of Drag Stars and discriminating against them through a façade of permits and ordinances that have never been applied in this manner with any other group or organization,” said Jeremy Creelan, Partner at Jenner & Block. “LGBTQ+ performers are entitled to protections under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and we are asking the court to protect these fundamental rights and put a stop to this deeply troubling attack on free expression.”

Moratorium on St. George special events and… other changes

In light of the selective enforcement of the advertising ordinance, the City Council put a six-month moratorium on approving special events permits, starting in March, until they could figure out what to do with the ordinance. Since then, they decided to allow for exemptions from the moratorium for recurring and city-sponsored events, so it only applies to new events.

Another bit of funny business has to do with the public comments allowed at St. George City Council Meetings. In early May, St. George City Mayor Michele Randall banned in-person public comments at city council meetings. Some St. George citizens responded with protests, calling the Mayor’s new policy a violation of their First Amendment rights. On the day Southern Utah Drag Stars and the ACLU filed suit against the city, the Mayor announced she’s walking back the public comment ban. 

The Mayor explained her actions in a statement, saying, “the public input has devolved into statements unrelated to City business and at times, has disrupted the regular conduct of the City’s meetings and business. As a result, as Mayor, I put a “pause” on public input at City Council meetings in order to create more efficiency in accomplishing the City’s business.”

And now, the “pause” is over… with some new conditions: 

1. To comment in-person at City Council meetings, the person must live in St. George and provide their name and address to the city recorder. 
2. The public can only comment on “City business” but not “any agenda item or pending land use application.”
3. Only up-to 10 people can speak at any meeting, each with a two-minute time limit.
4. Commenters must refrain from using “obscene of profane language” and not attack others.
5. Officials will choose 10 people at random, if more than 10 people want to speak. 
6. After giving comment, a person will not be able to offer comment at future meetings for three months
7. People who disrupt meetings with “undue applause, jeering, uninvited comments, or other protests” will be told to leave.

There is another way to offer public comment on city business. Comments can be written and hand-delivered or mailed to the city recorder at 175 E. 200 North, St. George, UT 84770, or emailed at public-comment@sgcity.org. Residents may also submit comments on the city website at sgcity.org/contact/submitpubliccomment.

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Former Ensign Peak portfolio manager David Nielsen will share his experience on exposing details of LDS Church finances

For the first time, the whistleblower will speak publicly about revealing the size and use of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ investment portfolio. David Nielsen, a former portfolio manager for the LDS Church’s investment arm, Ensign Peak, blew the whistle on the church’s $100 billion reserve portfolio and misuse of charitable donations. He has never spoken about his experience or told his story publicly, but that’s about to change.

60 Minutes will air a report, including an interview with Nielsen, on Sunday, May 14.

How did we get here?

In November 2019, David Nielsen, a former money manager at Ensign Peak, the investment management branch of the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, files a whistleblower complaint with the IRS. Nielsen reveals that Ensign Peak had a $100 billion reserve portfolio from stockpiling charitable donations (given as tithing and other monetary donations by members) rather than using them for charitable purposes—possibly breaching federal tax rules. 

The whistleblower complaint accuses LDS Church leaders of misleading members about how their donations are spent. (Members are encouraged to donate 10% of their earnings as tithings to the church to remain in good standing and participate in religious ceremonies and services in its temples.) The complaint also accuses the church of using those tax-exempt donations for business ventures like the City Creek shopping center. 

Come January 2023, Nielsen calls on the Senate to investigate the LDS Church and Ensign Peak Advisors for tax fraud. He files a 90-page memorandum with the Senate Finance Committee, which shows “evidence of false statements, systematic accounting fraud” and violations of tax laws. It goes on to say, “For at least 22 years, [Ensign Peak] and certain senior executives have perpetrated an unlawful scheme that relies on willfully and materially false statements to the IRS and the SEC, so this for-profit, securities investment business that unfairly competes with large hedge funds can masquerade as a tax-exempt, charitable organization.” 

Following the whistleblower complaint, the LDS Church responded with a statement, asserting that “The Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves.” The LDS Church has since agreed that was a lie and the church did intentionally violate the law, per a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The SEC settlement outlines the efforts made by Ensign Peak, with the knowledge and approval of the LDS Church’s First Presidency, to hide the nature and wealth of the Church’s holdings. Ensign Peak broke the law by creating 13 shell companies to avoid disclosing the size of the Church’s portfolio to the SEC and the public. To what end? “The Church was concerned that disclosure of the assets…would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the Church’s portfolio.“ One might assume those negative consequences included church members’ refusing to pay to tithe if they knew the billions in the Church’s “reserve funds.”

Find a timeline of the LDS Church’s history of concealing its wealth from federal authorities and the public here.

There are other cases and investigations regarding the LDS Church’s finances, at least partially as fallout from Nielsen’s whistleblower complaint, that are still outstanding. James Huntsman, brother of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., filed suit against the LDS Church, claiming the church misused the money he donated (tithed) to the LDS Church. Nielsen filed a statement in the case, claiming the LDS church used tithing money for improper purposes, such as funding its mall, the City Creek Center. The IRS could also further investigate the claims made by the whistleblower complaint that are under its purview.

About the upcoming 60 Minutes report on LDS church finances whistleblower, “The Church’s Firm”

60 Minutes “reports on the $100 billion fortune built by the secretive investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a whistleblower’s allegation that instead of spending the money on good works, hundreds of millions were used to bail out businesses with church ties. Sharyn Alfonsi speaks with David Nielsen, a former senior portfolio manager at the church’s firm, about his role in a federal investigation and decision to come forward. Guy Campanile is the producer.”

The 60 Minutes report will air Sunday, May 14 at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and Paramount+ and Tuesday, at 8 p.m. ET, on the CBS News app.

This is perhaps the most attention the LDS Church has received on the newsmagazine program since Mike Wallace interviewed LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley on 60 Minutes back in 1996. 

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Pornhub blocks Utah web traffic, Utahns search for a workaround and an adult film industry group sues Utah after the State’s new age restriction law goes into effect

On May 3, 2023, Utah’s new age verification law went into effect and Utahns visiting Pornhub found they had lost access to the website. Rather than the adult website’s homepage, they were greeted by a message explaining why Pornhub has blocked Utah residents from accessing its content. And… many, many Utahns responded by searching for an immediate workaround to the ban.

PR and marketing service Culture Currents Institute looked at Google Trend data immediately following Pornhub’s ban on Utah users, and it found that Utah’s Google search volume for “VPN” saw a dramatic rise. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) can disguise the users’ location from a website or network and trick it into thinking the user is accessing from somewhere else—in this case, not Utah. 

If you’ve found yourself asking, “If getting around Pornhub’s Utah blackout is as easy as subscribing to a VPN, what is to stop people from using a VPN to get around online age verification all together?” you would not be the first. In fact, the relatively simple circumvention of the age verification requirement is one of the problems raised by critics of the new law, and more websites could follow Pornhub’s example—block Utahns from accessing their sites rather than comply with the new law. 

Where did this law come from? 

This past legislative session, the Utah State Legislature passed S.B. 287, “Online Pornography Viewing Age Requirements.” The law went into effect May 3, 2023, requiring websites with “a substantial portion of material that may be harmful to minors” to verify the age of their users, and makes them legally liable if they don’t. 

Ostensibly, the purpose of S.B. 287 is to prevent minors from consuming material that the State of Utah deems harmful to minors, specifically. As such, The law applies to sites with more than 33% of their content falling under the potentially “harmful to minors” umbrella as a way to prevent people under 18 years old from viewing those sites. 

Which materials are harmful to minors, as defined by Utah law?

• Material that the “average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would find is designed to appeal to “the prurient interest”
• Material that depicts nudity, sexual acts, etc. “in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors”

That definition has already raised the potential for thorny legal predicaments following its application toward banning books from Utah school libraries. 

When it comes to verifying users’ ages, websites have a few options for methods of verification, as detailed by the law. It’s not as easy as having users fill out a birthdate:

• A digitized information card 
• An independent, third-party age verification service that checks the users’ information against a “commercially available database”
• Any method that relies on checking user info against commercially available “public or private transactional data”

Critics of the law have pointed out that the definitions and prescribed methods for age verification are vague and could infringe on users’ privacy and put the security of their private information at risk. Alison Boden, Executive Director of The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the trade group for the adult entertainment industry, says in an open letter to the sponsor of S.B. 287, “The law is so vague—and the requirements for compliance so contradictory—I cannot figure out how FSC members can follow this law.” The FSC has also set up a site where its members can redirect Utah users, if they, like Pornhub, decide to block Utah web traffic. So, more Utah-specific online blackouts could be coming. 

Why did Pornhub block Utah?

For Utahns trying to access Pornhub, a video message from Cherie DeVille, a member of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, replaces the usual home page. DeVille explains, “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and, in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.” And, it seems like users would have to verify their age every time they want to use the site because the new law also forbids sites like Pornhub from retaining personal info acquired through age verification.

Future online blackouts might not be limited to sites with “adult” content. Another new Utah law, S.B. 152, requires that social media platforms both verify the age of all users and get parental consent before allowing access to minors. This law, too, could mean that social media sites will need age-verification systems that use government IDs.

Unlike other states who have passed similar age verification laws, critics say Utah lacks a form of digitized ID, despite it being mentioned in the law as a potential method of age verification. While the State of Utah has a Mobile ID app that Utahns have the option to opt into, the electronic ID is set up to use in-person at some credit unions, the Salt Lake International Airport and some DABS Liquor Stores, but Utah’s digital ID program does not appear to be equipped for online age verification at the moment. In a message to its members, FSC explains, “Unfortunately, the Utah legislation does not provide a straightforward way to comply…And the other compliance methods required by the legislation don’t align with the current offerings from most if not all AVS (age verification service) providers.”

Pornhub and FSC are pushing for device-based verification and restrictions, rather than sweeping age verifications. “In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that age-verification requirements like the one instituted in Utah are unconstitutional so long as other less intrusive methods—such as device-level internet filters—are available,” says FSC on its website. The FSC points to a Pew Research study that shows those digital tools are underutilized by parents, even though they are widely available. The study found that only 39% of parents report using parental controls for blocking, filtering or monitoring their teen’s online activities. 

“We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification,” says Pornhub’s message to Utah users. “Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Utah.”

Meanwhile…The adult film industry sues Utah

FSC has outlined the compliance issues it has with Utah’s new age verification law, but, in the lawsuit they filed against the State, the FSC focuses first on the First Amendment. “The Utah law restricts adults’ access to legal speech and violates decades of Supreme Court precedent,” says Boden. “We are fighting not only for the rights of our members and the larger adult entertainment community but for the right of all Americans to access constitutionally-protected expression in the privacy of their own home.”

The legal complaint against Utah says the law violates the First Amendment in a number of ways:

• Imposing a content-based restriction on protected speech, which, the complaint argues, doesn’t actually accomplish its stated purpose of protecting minors who can easily obtain “harmful materials” in other ways
• Compelling providers of online content to place an age-verification content wall over their entire websites unconstitutionally labels them as “adult businesses” 
• Requiring an approval method as a condition to providing protected expression is a prior restraint on speech

The filing seeks to have the courts pause any enforcement of the law while the plaintiffs continue legal proceedings to have the law deemed unconstitutional.

“We wrote to Utah during the legislative process raising these issues and asking for a dialogue around workable solutions, but were ignored,” says Boden. “Adult websites don’t want children accessing their content any more than the State of Utah does. But the solutions put forward in S.B. 287 put an unreasonable burden on free expression that we believe are meant to have a chilling effect for all Utahns.”

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Ribbon cutting ceremony for The Aster, a new mixed-use development in Downtown Salt Lake City

Danny Walz, Director of the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) of Salt Lake City, became emotional as he spoke to the crowd at the ribbon-cutting event for The Aster in downtown Salt Lake City on Tuesday. The mixed-use buildings and the land they stand on have a circuitous and storied development history to match the towering eight stories overlooking State Street at 255 South.

“This project is a story of redemption. Anyone who has been around long enough knows this was an abandoned six-story structure covered in graffiti for a number of years,” said Walz. He chokes up. “So, this is pretty cool.” What replaces that rusted iron and concrete skeleton are three buildings: two mixed-use towers with apartments and retail space, separated by a “paseo” (a mid-block walkway from State Street to Floral Street), and the restored Cramer House—originally built as a flower shop in 1890. 

It’s no secret that Utah is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis, and the need for many is dire. Although the ribbon on The Aster was just cut, a majority of the units in The Aster set aside for people earning well below the area median income (AMI) are already spoken for, according to an on-site member of the property management company EMG. 

One of the new residents, Stephanie Ramirez, spoke to the crowd at the ribbon-cutting ceremony with her young son in her arms. She said she recently made some decisions to improve her life that led to both her becoming a single mother and not having a place to live. “I am trying to do better and to be better and to break generational curses,” she said, and having an affordable place to live at The Aster, she believes, has helped her on that journey. 

Unfortunately, the opportunities for affordable housing are few and far between, in part because the need is so great. More than 70% of Utahns are priced out of the housing market—unable to afford a median-priced home—according to a recent analysis by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. 

“There is such a sense of relief,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall at the ribbon-cutting. “There has never been a project quite like this.”

More than a decade ago, the acre lot was already home to buildings of affordable housing units—50 or so single occupancy units in the Regis and Cambridge Hotels. The facilities were demolished to make way for more housing units and shops. The development ultimately fell through after construction began—leaving the unfinished building to rust for years—and the project lender foreclosed on the property. The RDA bought the property back at auction in October 2017 for $4 million. Thus began the latest attempt to revitalize the area and bring much-needed affordable housing to downtown Salt Lake City. 

RDA of Salt Lake City selected Brinshore Development in 2018 to build affordable housing on the property, which would become The Aster. Attaining funding for the project, however, was no simple feat. At the final count, the project needed 12 sources of funding to cross the finish line. The fact that it was able to come together, but also that it was a herculean task, presented as bittersweet at the buildings’ opening.

“I want to highlight how difficult it has been to get resources to provide affordable housing because it doesn’t happen naturally,” said Wayne Niederhauser, the State Homeless Coordinator. “I’m a real estate developer turned social worker, so I know what it takes to make a project work. But 12 funding sources is too complex. We would have more affordable housing if we could simplify that.” 

Michael Gallegos, Director of Housing and Community Development for Salt Lake County repeated the sentiment, “That many sources of local funds are often missed in these affordable housing projects. How can we make this easier? I’d like to pursue that. We’d appreciate the opportunity.” 

The sources of funding for the project include: $14.5 million in RDA financial assistance and other public financing came from the Utah Housing Corporation (4% and 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits), tax-exempt bonds, the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund, state housing tax credits, Salt Lake City’s Division of Housing Stability and Salt Lake County. Architecture and construction partners on the project include KTGY Architecture + Planning and Wadman Corporation.

“This is a flagship redevelopment project for Salt Lake City, as its mix of uses it will provide are unparalleled,” said Mayor Mendenhall. “The Aster’s sheer number of affordable units—including those large enough for families—combined with its creative 3-building layout, block-activating commercial storefronts and public spaces and access points make it like nothing else in Downtown, the City, County or even State.”   

The Aster project boasts:

• 18,000 square feet of commercial space (at least some of which appears to be available at the time of this reporting)
• 190 residential units
• 168 of those units are designated as deed-restricted to households making 20-80% of the area median income (AMI), over half of those units are set aside for residents making 50% AMI or below, and those units range from studio to 4-bedroom apartments (the remaining units are leased at full market value)
• Dog wash bays
• Community room
• Rooftop patio

The once-flower shop will be the future home of a bar concept from Water Witch. As for that what that will entail, we will have to wait and see. But, rest assured, it will be delicious.

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