Run-of-the-mill excommunications get very little notice.
Ward gossip about the guy who sold drugs, the woman who left her husband, quietly fades. We only hear about the celebrities kicked out of the Mormon church -- the outspoken feminists, the skeptical historians. If anything, excommunication makes them more well-known.
Chad Hardy's mistake was becoming slightly famous.
Two years ago, Hardy published a cheeky little calendar of scantily clad return missionaries and it cost him first his church membership and then his college diploma.
BYU is holding it hostage.
"The agreement is that you will uphold the honor code. This is made very clear," says Carri Jenkins, Brigham Young University spokeswoman. "It really is a matter of integrity."
It's a contract of sorts between the school and the student. And Hardy didn't hold up his end, Jenkins says.
If we're speaking strictly in business terms, seems like BYU hasn't either.
The dispute centers on a matter of days.
A faithful Mormon boy, a returned missionary, Hardy attended the church's private university from 1999 to 2002. He left four credits -- a religion class, as it turns out -- short. Six years later, he took a Utah history course by correspondence, bought his cap and gown, walked with his class, snapped a picture with his parents. An adviser shook his hand.
But 31 days earlier, church elders had kicked him out for "conduct unbecoming of a member of the church" (really, it was about the calendar) -- a clear violation of BYU's honor code. So, four years of classes and $10,000 in loans down the drain.
It wouldn't matter if Hardy offended the code of conduct as a sophomore or the night before graduation, Jenkins says. Rules are rules . Students have to be code-worthy on graduation day.
Hardy figures he's being used to keep other students in line.
"They're dragging this out and making an example of me. And I'm letting them do it," he says. "They control by fear. I'm just allowing people to watch."
Last fall, he appealed the university's decision. A week ago, he got the letter from Dean of Students Vernon Heperi -- no diploma. Hardy refused to answer BYU's questions about his sex life, whether he drank coffee after 2002. As far as he's concerned, those details are none of their business now.
So, Heperi searched Hardy's Web site for some proof.
"I find that the material related to this calendar, as well as other material posted on your Web Site, is inappropriate in light of the teachings of the church and the applicable above-referenced Honor Code principles," Heperi wrote.
To be honest, Hardy, 32, doesn't need the diploma. He has a successful team-building business in Las Vegas. "Men on a Mission" has sold just under 20,000 copies; the proceeds are donated to charity. He's launching a pinup calendar of Mormon Vargas girls, "Hot, Mormon Muffins: Taste of Motherhood." He pays his legal bills with donations.
Still, he wants the diploma. He earned and paid for it. He's thinking of going to court.
"If I was a dishonest person, I would play their game," Hardy says. He's been told he can have the scrap of parchment if he'll return to the church.
I believe that's known as ransom.
