The Bruin Guide, Belmont’s student handbook, promises to provide “information essential for making your way through the puzzles that college may present.”

In some cases, however, the information itself is puzzling to students.

According to the guide, specific acts of sexual misconduct forbidden at Belmont include “sexual relations outside of marriage, homosexual behavior, sexual harassment, rape (date, acquaintance and stranger rape), other non-consensual sex offenses and possession or distribution of pornographic materials.”

Some students expressed concern over how the list of violations is phrased, asserting that the statement may imply that criminal acts such as sexual harassment and rape and non-criminal acts such as homosexual relations and premarital sexual relations are viewed and punished equally.

Dean of Students Andrew Johnston assured that the list of offenses is not meant to imply equal severity among any of the violations.

“The notion that those things are of equal magnitude wasn’t in the intent of that statement,” Johnston said.  “It’s more or less mentioning things that might occur and what we might view as falling under sexual misconduct.”

It is perhaps that broad scope that leaves students, when considering the rules on sexual conduct, unable to determine campus myth from reality.

Homosexuality

“In Belmont’s ruling, if they find out that you are a homosexual, they can exercise the right to expel,” sophomore John Roden said.

Not so, according to Dean of Students Andrew Johnston. “We have no policies about your sexuality, we have a sexual conduct policy. If you asked, ‘If I’m gay I’ll be kicked out?’ I would say, ‘This policy relates to your conduct, that’s why it’s a sexual conduct policy.’”

In other words, a student can be punished for engaging in heterosexual or homosexual premarital relations, either on campus or off-campus at university-sponsored events. A student cannot, however, be punished for homosexual orientation unless it is accompanied by sexual activity in violation of the guide.

Andi Stepnick, chair of the sociology department, argued that some homosexual students still feel out of place at Belmont, and the policy does little to encourage their acceptance.

“When at the informal level it’s true that you can’t be kicked out for being gay, my impression is that some students are gay and do not feel welcome here,” she said.

Stepnick said she has witnessed first-hand the struggle homosexuals can face at a Christian university where the code of conduct discourages homosexual behavior.

“Gay students have come to my office at least a dozen times in the last six years I’ve been here saying, ‘I feel like I’m suffocating here,’” she said.

While the sexual code of conduct is helpful in many ways, Stepnick said, she still doesn’t “think that homosexuality needs to be a separate category from sexual relations outside of marriage, because heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality are covered under sex before marriage.”

Premarital sex

It’s true that Belmont considers sexual relations outside of marriage to be misconduct, but some question how “sexual relations” is defined.

    Sophomore Michael Gaier believes “sexual relations” is “an umbrella term that can be used to describe any sort of interaction between two people that could be considered stimulating.”

But classmate Terrell Crudup believes in a narrower definition. “Sexual relations,” he said, includes “penetration, stuff like that.  It would not include hugging, kissing, holding hands.”

Johnston said the university is committed to the idea that “sexual conduct belongs within the bounds of marriage.” 

Pornography

While the Bruin Guide doesn’t define “sexual relations,” it does provide a definition for “obscene materials.” Those materials that would subject a student to discipline by the university must, the guide states, “be both (1) materials in which a reasonable person, applying contemporary Belmont community standards, when considering the contents as a whole, would conclude that they appeal to prurient sexual/physical interests or violently subordinating behavior rather than an intellectual or communicative purpose, and (2) materials that, taken in to regarding their content and their particular usage or application, lack any redeeming literary, scientific, political, artistic or social value.”

In Gaier’s mind, that definition is still lacking.

“That is such a vague statement,” he said.  “There are so many implications literature makes. And social values?  Whose values?”

Despite some student and faculty objections to some of the content in the sexual conduct section of the Bruin Guide, others agree that the section is appropriate considering the heritage of the school founded as a Baptist institution in 1951.

“As a religious institution I would say those behaviors are very much in line with what Scripture teaches on the sacredness of sex,” junior Jon Young said.  He explained that all Belmont students have the right to choose for themselves what morals to uphold sexually, but “since they chose to come to this institution they have to abide by the rules of it.”

Sophomore Joy Kayser feels that if students have a major problem with the Bruin Guide, they should have reviewed it before attending Belmont in the first place.

“People who go to Belmont should have read this before they came here,” she said. “Whether you agree with it or not, you go to this school, and you sign stuff that says you’ll agree to the Bruin values.”

Johnston said that while Belmont is “not a narrow-minded, arbitrary, judgmental place,” the institution still has a definite commitment to its moral standards, which the university is “going to live out in every circumstance.”