The Continual Push for a Feminist LDS Church

Another NYTimes article, about the women in the church. Let's break this one down.

Last year, when Kristy Money was planning a baby-naming ceremony in her Mormon congregation, she asked if she could hold her newborn during the ceremony, sitting or standing inside the circle of men who would bless her daughter.

“All I want is to hold my baby,” Dr. Money, a 29-year-old psychologist in Santa Monica, Calif., said she told her bishop. She said he refused, explaining that only men who hold the priesthood could participate. “I was heartbroken,” Dr. Money said in a phone interview.

You hold your baby all the time, what's the problem? You want to bless the child? Well, your husband is going to, or should he step aside just because you want to. You want to stand in the circle? Well, you are part of the prayer, that's the important thing. Or do you not understand that?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose priests and governing authorities form an entirely male group of leaders, is facing a geyser of questions from women who want more participation and visibility in virtually every aspect of Mormon life. While many Mormon women say they are satisfied with the way things are, others want to hold the priesthood along with men, essentially erasing the faith’s long-held idea that God wants men and women to perform different roles. A third contingent argues for leaving the priesthood to men but raises questions: Why may male religious authorities ask women intimate details about their sex lives in meetings in which no other women can be present? Is there a reason why women cannot handle bookkeeping or finances for congregations?

I'll respond to this more later. But in a nutshell, these women don't have enough, they need more, more, more!

In response to an article in The New York Times on Sunday, in which church leaders said they were interested in expanding opportunities for female members, Mormon women poured out requests: to be Sunday school presidents, to plan worship, to be allowed to teach seminary while they have children under 18, and to let their daughters serve as ushers.

“My husband’s group of young men recently trained to climb Mount Rainier together,” Jennifer McDonald, a 36-year-old clinical psychologist in DuPont, Wash., who supports women’s ordination, wrote in an email. The corresponding activities for young women were “quilting, making friendship bracelets, and hair styling,” she said.

So why not do what the men do instead of acting out like a jealous wench? Could it be that the girls don't want to, that they'd rather do the arts and crafts? Besides, girls join the boys all the time, so what's stopping you this time?

Many asked that church authorities stop trying to inculcate chastity by comparing women who have had sex outside of marriage to “pieces of chewed gum, boards with holes nailed into them, muffins that someone else had already tasted,” said Elisa Koler, 29, a teacher and former missionary who stopped attending church because of concerns about how women are treated.

Church authorities are doing no such thing, but rather telling them that repentance can make you whole (too many sources to list, I mean just do a search on talks yourself at the website).  It's a stigma that regular people attach to the members who have sinned, and by the way to men as well, not just women. It is in no wise condoned by any church leader.

Though church leaders have recently taken small but significant steps, like lowering the age limit for female missionaries and inviting a woman to deliver a prayer at its central semiannual gathering, it remains unclear how extensively the all-male central leadership is willing to remake its rules and culture or begin to share authority. “As church leaders, we are keenly aware of these cultural issues and of course we are addressing them,” Linda K. Burton, the church’s most senior female official and president of its women’s auxiliary the Relief Society, said in a statement.

Again, the statement reminding us of the all-male leadership like it's a dictatorship. At this point it becomes obvious what the agenda is, gynocentrism. Yes the church is addressing the concern, but not how to remake itself to suite feminist dogma, but rather how to avoid becoming corrupted by such capriciously self-centered ideals of promoting women over men. 

One of the most common requests from women is for other females to be present when discussing personal matters with male authorities— at interviews for admission to the temple, confessions of sin and disciplinary hearings, and discussions of traumatic events like rape or domestic violence.

“It is inappropriate under the best circumstances and dangerous under the worst circumstances to place a girl or woman alone in a room with an unrelated man to describe these personal and vulnerable situations,” wrote Julia Jarrett, a 28-year-old lawyer in Salt Lake City.

So why is it inappropriate or even dangerous? For the same reason it's dangerous to have men around children? You know like how we assume the worst about men as a whole? Elaborate please, tell us how you really feel.

Several years ago, Allison Shiffler, a former missionary, confessed to church authorities in Provo, Utah, that she had had sex with her boyfriend, a transgression of the Mormon prohibition against premarital sex. Her bishop asked if she was on birth control, how many times she had sex, and if she had a history of masturbating, which is also against church rules.

“Talking to a middle-aged man about these things and being asked those questions made me not want to come back to church,” she said. Ms. Shiffler, 23 at the time, was disciplined by an all-male council, which she found equally upsetting. “It’s like being the harlot in the Bible,” said Ms. Shiffler, who has since been reinstated.

It is like that for men too, and what is so bad about a middle aged man? Are you not only misandrist but an ageist now too? What about in court, should we only have female judges officiate over women, with an all female jury? Men not allowed? Men don't complain about this, why are the women? What do they have to worry about so much? Well the short answer is that we live in a fear-mongering culture where women are taught to fear and loathe men, evidenced by the false proclamations of everyman a rapist, that men exclusivelyabuse all women in the domicile, and that every ten seconds another women is abused (claim this came from FBI statistics too, even though FBI doesn't track domestic abuse). Also that all men are predatory to children or pedophiles, and that men walk out on their responsibilities to their families. This an much more, and I'm not even including some of the stuff second wave feminism said against men.  My guess would be that Julia Jarrett believes all the hype about men being the epitome of all this evil, whereas Allison may not, but believes that being disciplined by women would have somehow been better? I thought women hated having other women rule over them.

Other women described relating instances of domestic violence or sexual abuse to male authorities. Some of the women said the authorities had handled the situations well, encouraging them to contact law enforcement officials, but others said the experience would have been entirely different had a trained counselor, or at least another woman, been present. Rena Lesue-Smithey of Springville, Utah, now 32, recalled telling her bishop two decades ago that a teenaged boy had molested her. Because she had been wearing tight shorts, she believed the fault was hers and confessed it as a sin, which her bishop treated as such. He agreed with her request at the time not to tell her parents, and the older boy was never held accountable.

How will having another person change the outcome? Why not have a lawyer present? So Rena, you think we should have sent the boy to jail for the rest of his life because why? Was it malignant? Then maybe someone should have set him straight like the parents, which probably happened, but how would you know, he had anonymity just like you, or is that a right reserved only for women? And why did you think your tight shorts mattered? Did the bishop say that? Or were you indoctrinated by feminist ideologues to believe that all men and society blame women for every sexual abuse instance on the clothing they wear? Clear that up please instead of misleading us.

Even some former bishops say they were uneasy presiding over such intimate matters without other women present. “A bit uncomfortable, yes, more than a bit,” said Dean Bender, a 63-year-old therapist in Rocklin, Calif. Church officials declined to comment on the policy.

I can see it now, if this wasn't best suited to further the women first agenda, it would be used instead to tell men to "man up."

Together, women have also begun to spell out what it would look like for them to be more fully integrated into the church’s life and leadership. (The women who serve in roles from Relief Society president to the chief executive and president of the church’s publishing company said in interviews that they are often consulted by the church’s top leaders, known as “the Brethren,” but only these male leaders make the final decisions on matters affecting the whole church.)

Men make the final decision, but always consider what the women have to say, all this tells me is that women already have some degree of authority, or at least are treated like they matter but only men take responsibility for it.  So what's the problem? Women want credit for it? What about when things don't go the way you plan? Dump it back on the man's shoulders perhaps, while you slink back into the shadows?

Leaders of church women’s organizations should be present at all central decision-making meetings, said Nevlan McBaine, a blogger who is considered a moderate on gender issues. Women should not be warm-up speakers for their husbands but should preach and publicly delve into central matters of doctrine, said Taina Matheson Price, a 32-year-old scientist in Provo, Utah. Though a woman recently gave a prayer at the church’s General Conference, the male speakers heavily outnumber the female ones. “If we are going to have eight hours of conference, we should have more than 20 minutes of women speaking,” said Emily Palmer, a 29-year-old graduate student in Eugene, Ore.

Women don't warm up an audience Taina, they preach and delve into doctrine too. Just because they are first doesn't make it any different. 

I bet Nevlan if men went first, you'd be complaining about how they going first is somehow demeaning to women. And why does having them present make any difference, especially when it's the will of God, not men and women that determine the outcome of any central decision in the church. My guess is that you believe women know better than God Himself, otherwise you wouldn't be doing what you are currently doing to His church.

Emily let me now ask you, how long should women speak at conference? Should we have quotas? Why is it that women speaking is going to somehow enhance the session, when it's really all just the word of God anyway? If so, how? Basically, why should we do what you demand? Elaborate please, don't just assume we are going to take your word on it like it's gospel miss pretentious. Also see comment to Nevlan.

More than 1,300 Mormon women have signed a manifesto outlining specific changes. The document, titled “All Are Alike Unto God,” asks the men who run the church to consider women’s ordination, which officials in Salt Lake City say is out of the question. Only opening the priesthood to women can address the gender imbalance in the church, contends Kate Kelly, a human rights attorney in Washington who founded the Ordain Women movement. “Not only do Mormons believe the priesthood is the power of God, and can perform and officiate in miracles, but it’s also completely intertwined with the governance structure of the church,” she said. “There is no amount of incremental change, and no amount of additional concessions that the church can make to extend an olive branch to women without changing that fundamental inequality.”

Another pretentious woman pitting her wisdom against everyone else like someone died and made her God. Who decides there is a gender imbalance in the church? Do men get a say in it, or perhaps all the other women who disagree with you? Or do only self-proclaimed ideologues like yourself, who want to further their own agenda of haughty self-interest get a say in the matter? Why do we need to extend an olive branch to others by changing what we are? If you want society to accept you as they are, be accepting of others and what they believe, otherwise you come across as an intolerant bigot.

When Dr. Money was told she could not hold her daughter, Rosie, at the church baby-naming ceremony, she held it in her home instead, and then signed up with Ms. Kelly’s group. Next month, when advocates of female ordination hold their latest protest, asking for admittance to male-only meetings at the church’s semiannual General Conference, Dr. Money will join them, with Rosie in her arms.

What is this a heart-warming story? She joined the dark side, protesting everything she believed because she could not hold her child during one prayer. Nice job too going against what you believe simply because you prefer things your way rather than what has been ordained.

Women and the priesthood, will they ever quit demanding the change?

If there are women who disagree with how the LDS church is run, then they are free to leave. Sure it may be attached with a certain degree of social stigma, but that's what being independent is all about, making choices without worrying about what other people think and accepting the consequences. Some don't, and they may be excommunicated, but of course that's what happens when a foreign host invades the body that is not conducive to its good health, the body works to expunge the invader. Makes sense right? If you don't like a club or organization, leave, but some people rather stay and make the organization bend to their will, as evidenced by the last piece Iwrote about the women who think the American economic system, it's policies and procedures, should revolve around their selfish desires no matter the expense. 

I have to admit, I'm tired of people looking at the church as if the doctrine is true, but it was created by men, therefore the doctrine is part of an archaic form of patriarchal rule that seeks to limit women; and thus campaign to try and have the doctrine be re-written to a more modern politically correct set of policies born out of an corrupt ideology that claims to be progressive but really only breeds social and economic degeneration (a discussion for another time). If you believe it is an organization born out of the patriarchy, then you must not believe it is Divinely inspired. If you do believe it to be divinely inspired, then you'd be pitting their wisdom against a Supreme Being, and to question it, or act as if they know better which is the same as having the audacity to defy that Supreme Being. Questioning the leaders would be equally bad because you'd be defying the Divinely appointed servants. One should be careful about what or who they choose to defy because to go against a God (even God of gods), would be a grave mistake with eternal consequences. Perhaps these women can think about that when they are protesting at the next General Conference.