UTAH STORIES: THE BEARD CARD
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There are many things you cannot do on the BYU campus. You cannot, as a female, enter into a men’s dormitory or vice versa with a man in a women’s dorm. You cannot have multiple piercings or tattoos according to the private schools’ honor code of conduct. You cannot smoke. You cannot swear. You must be chaste, pure and clean as the kingdoms of heaven.
You can however, possess a beard…IF you have been issued a beard card (or beard exception) by the administration after receiving medical attention for the inability to not have a beard if that makes sense.
A beard card may be obtained by having severe pseudofolliculitis barbae. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Aw, it’s not that bad. I would think the desire to simply have a beard under the oppressive circumstances in which you cannot have one would hurt way more than this actual diagnosis. Severe pseudofolliculitis barbae is simply a condition of razor burn. Ironically, it is experienced by 60% of African American’s I discovered. So essentially that covers a good 2 beard cards I imagine. If you are an African American Mormon I would suppose you have bigger issues than severe pseudofolliculitis barbae anyway.
Now one imposing question comes to mind. The church was founded on polygamy, whiskey and beards. Now that they’ve taken away all the polygamy, whiskey and have attempted to also take away the beards, do we have ourselves an Animal Farm situation? Does Brigham Young and his immediate predecessors get to hog all the beard and whiskey, not to mention polygamy action to leave their after generations hating on the players, the drunks and the hipsters (prideful beard owners).
Does the church hate hipsters?
Another problem that came from this ban was that BYU students are some of the most bored and mischievious people I have ever met. They don’t drink or polygamize so really they can focus all their attention on finding loopholes. Some kids started a Fight Club years ago because the movie was cool and it was the loophole to actually murdering anyone. The commandments say “Thou shalt not murder” NOT “Thou shalt not create a fight club”. It is okay for a BYU student to covet a neighbor’s sister for instance, but God forbid, literally, he covet’s his neighbor’s wife. So when the beard ban was imposed suddenly the Administrative offices were BOMBARDED by students seeking beard cards for ailments that needed medical attention OR just simply attention. It almost became the fad of the men on campus. Some would intentionally irritate their face with rubbing alcohol or wire brushes before seeing the doctor. Some would use lotion they were allergic to.
This statement was actually released in the paper. “Students who fraudulently represent they have a medical condition to acquire a beard waiver have broken the commitment they’ve made to live the principles of the Honor Code.”
There were also a few women. Since 6 out of 8 of Brigham’s wives had beards, I’m not sure what the big deal was.
ANYWAYS, Stay Tuned for more weird Utah stories. I survived Salt Lake and all I got was this dumb T-shirt. Next: Chief Wakara’s Gold.
