We heard about this topic while watching ESPN. The commentators on ESPN found it ridiculous that a player was kicked off the team for a non-criminal act. Because of the Mormon religion, the player was held to a higher standard than the average athlete.
Due to the feminization of love, men's ways of expressing their love are not acknowledged and therefore this is detrimental to men. One comment on this article was, "This is terrible, they are making this kid feel like his life is ruined because he slept with his girlfriend....this kid is going to put such a negative connotation with having sex."
We as a group, believe that because of men's ways of expressing love are overlooked, men are restrained from showing women affection. The traditional way that we view love is more focused on the Christian religion as a whole. Today, there are many sexual influences in pop culture that contradict these traditional views.
The point of view of the author in this article is neutral, whereas the players, students, and faculty all support the honor code. We find this interesting because we don't believe that having sex with your girlfriend should be punished in this matter. We think that BYU is restricting Brandon's ability to express love while furthering the feminization of love.
While reading this article, we want you to keep in mind pop cultures influence on sex and love and also the affect that the feminization of love has had on men. Some questions we want you to answer are.... 1. Do you believe that this is the correct decision? Morally? Legally? 2. Does this restrict the man's ability to love? 3. How do you feel about the Mormon religion? Is it contradictory to the masculine definition of love?
We look forward to hearing your responses!
I heard about this story the other day and I thought the same thing. Imagine if Ohio State was like that...probably will not have very many sports left to roster. lol.
ReplyDeleteOn the decision about kicking him off the team, yes I believe that it was a harsh decision but at the same time HE choose the college knowing fully the rules, expectations, and consequences of his choice to go to BYU. Everyone has a choice, even if you choose not to decide. In this case he choose to take that chance and I hope for his sake that he loves the girl and plans on spending the rest of his life with her. So I have to say that I agree with both parties on the decision, you and BYU, to some extent. Is this legally wrong? Well I guess it depends on what laws you’re talking about, the United States of America or BYU's? Of course it’s not illegal according to the Constitution but according to BYU, it sure is.
Now this event will affect his life forever but I hope it does not change his feelings for this girl. I think now he will be more careful with his decisions but I don't know if it will affect his ability to love. This is a good question and I am eager to hear what others have to say about this.
About my views of the Mormon religion, I agree with many things they believe but there are other things that really just do not make sense. I won't get into this but I think that in some ways it actually helps masculine love depending on how much someone follows/believes in the religion. One of the things that are similar to Christianity is that they love Jesus Christ and they follow his teachings, so therefore they practice selflessly loving others. This can be helpful in doing nice things for others, being honest, respectful and generous. On the other hand, sex is something that differs from their views and as we know that is one thing that characterizes masculine love. Premarital sex is (as seen by the article) not accepted by the religion probably because that is what the Bible says.
Overall I love the choice in the article and I think it will bring good comments and conversation. I look forward to hearing your response on what you think.
I feel like becuase it is a Mormon school it seems appropriate that they would have Mormon rules that you have to abide by if you go there and even though I don't agree with the rule, the player did indeed sign a contract saying he would abide by this rule and he did indeed break said rule. I think it's kind weird that that rule is in a contract though. I mean how exactly do they plan on enforcing that? It's kind of hard to prove and/or catch someone doing it.
ReplyDeleteI think its a fair choice to kick him off the team due to the fact he choose to go to school there and choose to sign the contract. If he didn't want to abide by these restrictions he should have gone to a different school. Being the player he was, he probably could have gone elsewhere to play basketball.
ReplyDeleteJust because he is the only public case of this doesnt mean that every week there is not somebody kicked out of BYU for breaking the contract. BYU also declined comment on the matter other than to say he broke it. For all we know he could have been the 2000th person to be "charged" with breaking the contract.
I grew up with one of my friends being morman and the family was very guarded with relationships. My friend wasn't aloud to have a relationship until he was 18. He told me that it was because he was morman and wasn;t just his parent's decision. So i feel like the religion itself sets guide-lines for living and that if the player chooses to go to a school with the guide-lines of a religion, he should have to live by them. So i don't feel that the school made abad decision, he knew the consequences of his actions and now has to live by it. There are many ways to show love than by sex so i feel that he made a bad choice.
ReplyDeleteI feel the school did use this to in a way set an example and to show their standards publicly. Also, I'm sure they saw this a s a good opurtunity to gain some publicity from this since this player was in the spotlight alot for his basketball playing. I first heard of this story on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he mentioned that in todays world of sports they should be honoring this man for having consensual sex with his girlfriend, I found this to be a very interesting point of view on the subject.
ReplyDeleteThe punishment reminds me of plantation owners whipping their slaves in front of all of the other slaves to serve as a deterrant to criminal activity. An incentive system based on fear will always break down eventually, since trust is so important for a relationship.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the correct decision legally since the player signed a contract. He should have known the expectations and standards of a morman school. Whether this is right or not morally is more a matter of opinion. Obviously the Morman's would believe this to be the morally correct decision. Other religions that are less strict about premarital sex may disagree.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this restricts the man's ability to love all that much. Men are still able to love without having sex.
The Morman religion can be a bit wierd but so can every other religion.
I personally am not a Mormon therefore I feel that I can't judge. Although because it is a Mormon school and Davies did sign the contract, he was obligated to hold his end of the contract. Those were his beliefs and he "broke" them. Because of the school and the contract together I believe that the punish was ok.
ReplyDeleteAs I stated in class, I feel as if this decision is "correct" based on the school's moral standards and the school's contract each and every individual student had to sign. Although I personally disagree with the school's action to suspend Brandon from the basketball team, I think they were using him as an example to all of the other students. They knew by suspending/kicking him off of the basketball team, it would get news coverage and it would get publicity and therefore would tell the students, "Hey, we're not messing around."
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, every single athlete had to sign a contract saying that we would remain free from drugs and alcohol during the school year. Each and every athlete HAD to sign it, and we did. I actually had a couple popular friends and extreme assets to the team who got suspended from the team because of the fact they were seen in pictures with alcohol.
I think this was also our schools idea to punish the popular team members in order to show everyone else that if you drink, you get in trouble.
Although it is very unfortunate that Brandon was kicked off the team, he knew the contract he signed and he knew the consequences of his actions and therefore, his punishment was "right".
I think this was a great example of how love in shown in different ways throughout different cultures and religions. Answering your frist question, personally I can not say whether it is correct but i do think that the player knew what the consequences were because he signed a contract saying that he would obery the rules of the school. We obey rules that we know we have to obey and I think people that are outside the mormon culture don't realize that we do the same things, just in different ways. I feel that he was in the spotlight more than other students due to being on the basketball team and that they are using him as an example. His way of showing affection to his girlfriend through sex is not abnormal to most but it's just rather about how public we decide to make those decisions. Overall I think this article was a very good example of love in society today.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first heard about this I was shocked and thought it was stupid. However, once I took the time to analytically think about it, I had a different point of view.
ReplyDeleteOriginally, I thought that they cannot just kick someone out for having sex; however, he did sign a contract saying that he was cognizant that he could not have sex, among other things. To others external to the Mormon religion, it seems ridiculous; yet, to Mormons it does not. The player knew that he was not allowed to have sex and still did it anyway; this does not take away from the fact that it is an unfortunate situation.
When I read what the ESPN commentators said about this situation, I actually felt bad for the Mormons. Even though I am not a Mormon, I still feel as if we have to respect their way of life. For example: people of the Christian, Jewish, or any religion for that matter would not be happy if people were publicly trashing a decision they made based off of the ideals of their religion.
From a legal standpoint, BYU is within its rights because the player knowingly signed the contract. As for the question of morality, that is in the eyes of the beholder.
Well, I think the decision made by school is acceptable. Any religion has its own rules to follow; like Muslims can’t eat pork and Christians can’t commit suicide. Once you sign the contract or believe in the Mormon, you have to be responsible for what you did. That’s very important I think, because we have to give the same respect to every religion, although sometime some rules might seems strict and ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThe religion, of course, restricts the man’s ability to love. Like, I have a Muslim friend, according to what he said, he cannot have girlfriend before he get married. And he cannot even touch other girls except his mom and sisters. So, the religion has set barrier for him to love.
When I first saw this article I thought it was rediculous that someone could be kicked off a basketball team for having sex, but after I read more into it my views changed. This player signed a contract accepting the honor code of the school, so he knew what he couldn't do. This does restrict him from showing "masculine" love, because sex is a big part of that. Normally I don't think kicking him out would be the right decision, but he made the choice to go to BYU and sign the contract so the school has ever right to do what they did.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that he knew the consequences of his actions before he did his incriminating act. even though i don't really agree with the terms of the commitment and feel that the sexual restrictions are ridiculous and extremely invasive, the player agreed to the terms and should honor them
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