PRIESTESSHOOD SESSION

http://ordainwomen.org

This Saturday, April 6th, 2013 (the 183rd anniversary of the LDS Church's founding) while faithful Mormon men the world over attended the man-datory Priesthood Session of General Conference, about 100 people (mostly women) gathered on the University of Utah campus in solidarity and support of female Priesthood ordination.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56117824-78/women-priesthood-mormon-lds.html.csp

The event-organizer for these unorthodox-orthodox Saints is faithful Mormon, Kate Kelly, a human rights attorney, who claims the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, always intended for women to function fully and equally within the holy Priesthood he restored. Kelly notes that the female Relief Society was designed to function in perfect parallel with the male organization, with a President and 2 counselors who served, not for a short few-years term as they do now, but for life, just as the Apostles do. 

Kelly also highlights the fact that women often performed blessings of healing by the laying-on-of-hands in the first decades of the Restoration. 

And as all "endowed" women know, Temple matrons perform Priesthood ordinances daily as part of the Endowment ceremony. During the Washings and Anointings, women lay hands on other women's heads and invoke the Priesthood. The Endowment ceremony is essentially a Priesthood ordination and the "garment" you receive in that ceremony is properly called the Garment of the Holy Priesthood.

A memorable couplet repeated in every Endowment Session is "They are hereafter Kings and Queens, Priests and Priestesses". 

Is there any hope a grassroots campaign might eventually move the Brethren to change policy and afford faithful women a more equal place in the Church?

Surprisingly, yes...maybe.

Only 8 hours before the rally for Female Ordination was held, there was a momentous break with tradition when Sister Jean Stevens offered the first female led prayer in an LDS General Conference, only 4 few months after an online campaign was launched to "Let Women Pray":
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mormons-gather-utah-semi-annual-conference-18896328#.UWHeG6JkybA

The Church insists that the Spring Conference itinerary was selected long before the social-media outcry, but only Sister Stevens can confirm that she was asked to give the invocation before "Let Women Pray" was launched.

Does this historic prayer signal a new day in gender egalitarianism within the Church?

Well...

Shortly before Sister Stevens rose to the pulpit, Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said this to a global Mormon audience:

"Men and women have different but equally valued roles... Just as a woman cannot conceive a child without a man, so a man cannot fully exercise the power of the priesthood to establish an eternal family without a woman."

(Scientific Aside)

What if we were to tell Elder Ballard that many women have conceived children without ever having had sex with a man?
(He'd probably argue that they still used a male donor.)

But what if we showed him that scientists have fertilized a female mouse's ovum with another female's DNA, producing completely healthy female offspring?
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Look-Moms-no-dad-Mice-born-in-Japan-from-2789992.php
(He'd probably insist it required a male scientist!)

And the Virgin Mary?!
(He'd probably say that the virgin birth was a miracle by God and God's a dude.)

There's just no arguing with some people.

Tackling this issue head on in behalf of all progressive Mormons is Joanna Brooks on her blog Ask Mormon Girl:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/7008/

A post soon to follow this will address the ever strained relations between the Church and LGBT rights.

-Joe

THANKS FOR ASKING

A family friend recently asked me over Facebook what I thought about the new mormons and gays website the Mormon church created a few months ago.

This was my response:

1. I consider it damage control on behalf of the church. If they say they love the sinner and hate the sin enough... maybe people will stop calling them bigots and blaming them for young, gay, Mormon suicides. They probably noticed people google "gay and mormon" a lot and they're attempting to stay at the top of search engines to limit the bad press and PR.

2. I guess I'm grateful they're trying to reach out to gays who've decided to stay in the church... I'm glad the language is softer than in the book the Miracle of Forgiveness where homosexuality is called the "sin against nature"...and the author laments that homosexuality doesn't carry the death penalty... anymore.
 
3. I have no idea if it will do anything to relieve the shame and pity my parents endure from members of their community.

4. In one of the videos on that site ("Our Common Humanity") they talk about how people shouldn't define themselves by their homosexuality because straight people don't define themselves by their heterosexuality... which is just a load of bull shit. 

Everything in this world... movies, books, school, religion, the way we dress, our attitudes, likes, dislikes...all of social life revolves around fitting/shaping people into gender boxes, hetero sex symbols, husbands, wives, ballerina's and firemen. Every aspect of my life is continually at odds with, and affected by the fact that I DO NOT FIT into these socially-assigned categories.

LGBTQ culture exists because we are not allowed to freely or fully exist anywhere else. 

Comments like: "stop flaunting your gayness" or "don't focus on your homosexuality"  are just euphemisms for "get your ass back in that goddamn closet, you're making people uncomfortable!" 

When you're OBVIOUSLY GAY, like I am... you can't just turn it off. 

5. This website seems to be an act of desperation by the Church. They realized it's no longer acceptable to wish a death sentence upon me or tell me I'm going to burn in hell [like those Westboro folks], so instead they're going to try and kill me softly by feigning compassion, disenfranchising my Queerness and slowly suffocating my self-worth and identity until my light goes out.

The good news is, it only works if you buy into it. 

Thanks for asking. No one ever does.
-Gwen

THE BRETHREN'S BRIEF

At the bottom of this post is a link to a short article by Deseret News, an LDS-owned SLC-based paper, which highlights the submission of twin briefs jointly filed by the LDS Church, and multiple socially conservative religious institutions, that argue against repealing Doma, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and Proposition 8, the California voter initiative that ended the legal practice of same-sex marriages in 2008.

Though the LDS Church is just one of the signatories to the brief defending Prop. 8 the well known fact within Mormondom and elsewhere is that a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and funds leading to the discriminatory law's passage came from the LDS Church; nearly 24 million dollars in advertisement, more than half the total amount spent on Prop. 8 promotion.  

I can only speculate as to the pro-Prop. 8 brief's content. I have not read the brief but I have encountered many statements from the Brethren opposing marriage equality. These statements are voiced most frequently and fervently by Elder Oaks, the LDS Apostle, former Utah Supreme Court justice, and fierce defender of the yet untested "religious liberty" argument.

Before Prop. 8 was hauled before the Supreme Court or even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it was ruled unconstitutional by Northern California District Court Justice Vaughn Walker. Walker dismissed the law's validity as it violates 2 clauses of the 14th amendment; Due Process and Equal Protection. In Walker's assessment, Prop. 8 defenders failed at any point during the trial's proceedings to demonstrate "proof of harm" caused by same-sex marriage. Vague appeals to children's welfare and preserving the hallowed institution of historic marriage fell flat in the face of blatant discrimination.

After the ruling, Prop. 8 defenders touted Walker's own long-term gay relationship as a conflict of interest as Walker and his partner would potentially/directly benefit from the reinstatement of marriage equality in California. 

At this stage in the game, it appears Prop. 8's survival hinges on a change in course. As Walker thoroughly explains in his opinion, there is no demonstrable proof or empirical evidence that indicates gay couples marrying each other has any adverse impact on society. For those who insist gay marriages haven't been around long enough for the negative outcomes to manifest, they'd have to contend with the data coming out of countries like Canada and the Netherlands where gay couples have been marrying for over 10 years. To date there are no signs that society and morality are disintegrating within the ever growing community of nations that have ratified marriage equality.

Therefore, if it is not the case that gay marriages diminish straight marriages and that they do not undermine our national morality or the well-being of our children, those who would see Prop. 8 upheld must claim victimization. If gays are allowed to marry in California then the 1st Amendment rights of the plurality that voted against gay marriage will be trampled. This argument quiet helpfully puts gay marriage on the same level as Loving v. Virginia, the high watermark of Supreme Court marriage equality cases.

My hope is that the outcome will be the same, that prejudiced discrimination will be seen for what it is and be overturned. I don't believe, sadly, our highly partisan Supreme Court will vote as decisively against bigotry as did the 1967 court. With staunch Republican apologists like Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and, worst of all, Scalia, there will likely be a fierce battle ahead. But it may be that Justice Kennedy, an intractable conservative-libertarian, will fall on the side of gays and lesbians' right to self-determination in the face of majority rule. Kennedy was essential in ending draconian sodomy laws nationally in 2003.

However the Court rules, the Church will remain opposed to marriage equality, as comically hypocritical as it is for the Brethren, many of whom are direct descendants of polygamous unions, to now stand as the ultimate defenders of "traditional marriage".

-Joe

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865572385/LDS-Church-files-brief-in-gay-marriage-cases.html?pg=all