All images
from the 2009 calendar, Mormons Exposed, Brian Dalthorp
Photography
When they
weren’t busy promoting the passage of
California’s Proposition 8 in recent months,
Mormon leaders tried their best to make Chad Hardy’s
life hell. Riled by his “Men on a Mission”
calendar of shirtless returned missionaries, elders of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
excommunicated Hardy -- a lifelong Mormon -- in July. Then
in September, officials from the Provo,
Utah–based Brigham Young University informed
the 32-year-old entrepreneur, who had participated in the
school’s graduation ceremony a month earlier,
that his diploma would be denied. BYU says
Hardy’s expulsion from the church placed him outside
of the “good honor-code standing”
necessary to award him his degree, which has been
placed on nonacademic hold; Hardy contends that since he
completed his coursework prior to excommunication, the
rule should not apply. Meanwhile the 2008 skin-baring
calendar has sold more than 10,000 copies, and Hardy
-- who eschews sexual labels himself -- says the
just-released (and “a little bit
sexier”) 2009 incarnation is already “flying
off the shelves.”
Will you sue BYU to get your degree?
Yes, but I haven’t been able to file yet because
of the expense involved. My attorney has assured me
that the church, with its financial resources, will
likely attempt to bury me under legal pleadings in order
to encourage me to give up. One attorney estimates my costs
could exceed $30,000.
Have any of the guys featured in the calendar faced
LDS discipline?
Not that I am aware of. Several of them were called in
to meet with their local church leaders about the same
time I was originally contacted [about disciplinary
proceedings], three weeks after Thomas S. Monson
became the president of the church. The models were not
disciplined, nor did their local leaders have a
problem with the calendar. I was singled out.
Do you still consider yourself Mormon at this point?
I feel that I’m a Mormon culturally, but not
religiously. Mormonism is much like Judaism in that
one may stop observing the practices of the religion,
but culturally still identify with it. Mormonism has been a
part of my family for six generations. I was raised in the
faith, served a mission, and attended two LDS
colleges. I was the model Mormon, no pun intended.
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Calendar
images: Brian Dalthorp Photography courtesy of Mormons
Exposed