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From the column: An e-mail I received Friday, from a Cougar named Paul, was similar to a hundred others. It read like this: “I’m ready to jump off the ledge. This hurts. The thought of Utah going to the Pac-10 and us being stuck in the Mountain West makes me sick. I’m not kidding. I want to puke...And they [Utah] go to the Pac-10? Why? Because of [our] religious affiliation?” ...At Thursday’s announcement, Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott and Ute athletic director Chris Hill emphasized that Utah and the Pac-10 are a “great cultural fit.” Some Cougars see that not only as code-speak that BYU did not fit, but that there is a bias against the school for its connection with the LDS Church. Scott wouldn’t touch that when he was asked why BYU was left out by the Pac-10. But there likely is truth to both assertions.

I'm sure many reasons exist as to why decision was made -- both good and poor ones. An example of a "poor" component would be Prop 8. An example of a "good" consideration, culture-wise, would be how Lds have treated minorities for 150 years...and even how what the name "Brigham Young" stands for as a Mormon cultural icon.

I mean, read some of what Young stated from the tabernacle pulpit...and you'll understand. BYU has never distanced themselves from its "founding father."

From the column: I talked with a number of Pac-10 athletic directors who were in favor of getting BYU into the league because whenever their teams played the Cougars, thousands of more tickets were sold. Had it been up to them, BYU would be in. The holdup was with certain school presidents, for the aforementioned reasons.

Well, Stanford, I'm sure was one of those objecting universities. Because of Stanford's liberal core, it doesn't have any moral "one-upsmanship" over BYU. However, BYU allowed for that to occur in 1969 -- when Stanford became the first university refusing to play BYU because of its then racist policy on blacks.

BYU doesn't stand for academic freedom. It doesn't get any more basic than that. No University that truly values academic freedom is going to consort with BYU for mere sports dollars given a choice. The ADs of the more hand to mouth programs of the Pac-10 might like to have BYU in the league, but no one in charge of any of the Pac-10 campuses wants BYU's baggage from it being wholly owned by the LDS Church.

Were the Pac-10 to really have it in for Mormons, the University of Utah, with its greater than 50% enrollment of Mormons, would be culturally unacceptable.

USC was a denominational school for Methodists once upon a time. The key difference is that the Methodists never had an academic purge like the one BYU held in the 90s after the introduction of the University's ironically titled "Statement on Academic Freedom" that was anything but.

It's perfectly fine for BYU to be iconoclastic and exclusive about what it permits or doesn't permit. However, to then decry that one is discriminated against by those with competing ideals simply doesn't fly. the secular University of Utah received the invitation for being like minded where it counts--concerning the paramount importance of free inquiry to the academic mission.

Of course BYU was discriminated against. That is what is at the heart of freedom of association. The Pac-10 has chosen to NOT associate with BYU, both recently, and in the past, despite having multiple opportunities to invite them to the club. Calling that decision bigotry is just noisy whining. It was an entirely rational decision based upon honoring the premise that the Pac-10 is more than a mere athletics league. It has always had another mission for its full members--to act as an association of peer institutions for the purpose of furthering academic pursuits in all fields of inquiry.

God you need a family to concentrate on. No wonder you are so bitter and have such a negative and unproductive hobby. Just one person to love you would help you feel better about yourself, and then you will soon look around and start asking yourself how you can help others. You might even challenge yourself to add some sunshine into someone elses life so you are not so caught up in your own misery. Try some single ads or online dating services.