Straining at Gnats is WHY One Swallows Camels

That BYU has an honor code is of course nothing exceptional; most colleges have some sort of honor code that forbids cheating, plagiarism, sexual assault, etc, as well they should.  BYU, along with many religious colleges, expands that list to proscribe alcohol, drug abuse, and extra-marital sex, all of which are core tenets of the faith.  What makes BYU's such a strange beast, then, is its Dress and Grooming standards, one that bans beards of all things from the university named after the beautifully-bearded Brigham Young, as well as bare shoulders on women (such that BYU favorite Ann Romney could not have worn her prom dress there).

At BYU-Idaho where I got my undergrad, the Dress and Grooming Standards were expanded to also forbid shorts, sandals, and capris (not a big deal during the 9-month winters, but kind of silly during the hot-oven summers).  Now, I complied with the Honor Code, because I did in fact sign my name to a document saying I would while I was there; and whatever else may be my thoughts on Dress and Grooming Standards, I do believe in the dire importance of integrity and keeping one's word.  And so I wore jeans to campus in 100-degree heat.

Nevertheless, my compliance did not end my questioning of Dress and Grooming; on the contrary, I was more curious than ever as to its rationale.  I even asked the Dean of Students himself--whom I must hasten to add was a very kind and gracious man who treated my question respectfully--who still could not give anything more specific than the same vague old "if you're obedient in the small things, then that will carry over to obedience in the big things."  The college president, I remember, really loved to hammer that theme home at devotionals.  The thinking, apparently, is if one strains at gnats, then one will definitely strain at camels.

But of course that's not how it works at all!  I'm paraphrasing Christ there of course, who reserved his most furious denunciations for those Pharisees who, though scrupulously obedient to their dress codes, still defrauded the widows and the poor.  "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel!" He cried.  I know the type well.

For back when I installed security systems, I worked with these BYU salesmen who were likewise scrupulously obedient to Dress and Grooming Standards--even during Summer break!  Even after Graduation!  Such faithfullness!--yet who also still employed all manner of dishonesty to sell systems to the elderly, the legally blind, the deaf, the senile, the impoverished--that is, they defrauded the widows and the poor.  (Somehow that never came up in devotionals). 

I remember being asked to get a haircut by a sales rep who had just told an old woman that the motion sensor could read through walls; and I remember a non-Mormon tech who ordered a beer at a company dinner, and was asked in horror "you're not going to drink that are you?" by the same sales-rep who tried to sell to a legally-blind old woman in the early stages of dementia.  Is it any wonder that I don't care if people drink around me anymore, while I leave the room when a sales-recruiter enters?

But how could all this happen?  Why did their obedience in the small things not carry over to obedience in the larger?  How is it that after profiting off their ill-gotten sales, that they did "pay tithe...and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith," of honesty, integrity, and, well, honor?  In other words, why did the BYU Honor Code fail in its supposed purpose?

Because, as always, the Savior is wiser than us, for He already knew full well 2,000 years ago that straining at gnats doesn't make one strain all the harder at camels, no: Straining at gnats is WHY one swallows camels.