Mormon Women’s Group Shut Out of All-Male Meeting
A group of about 200 feminist women have been denied entrance to an all-male meeting of Mormon priesthood holders.
The Ordain Women group marched from a nearby park to a standby line at outside the meeting Saturday evening to highlight what they perceive as gender inequality. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spokeswoman Ruth Todd greeted them and told them they would not be allowed in. The group had previously been denied their request for tickets.
The all-male meeting is being broadcast live around the world for the first time ever. Kate Kelly, the group’s founder, said that’s a good first step but not enough. She said men and women are not equal in the church.
In a statement, church officials said millions of women do not share the views of this small group and find their efforts divisive
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That’s the latest from this link: Mormon Women’s Group Shut Out of All-Male Meeting - San Jose Mercury News. It also has an earlier article with other news about the meeting and some background.
This is an article by the same journalist (Brady McCombs) which gives an overview of the group Ordain Women: Gender equality among issues at Mormon conference
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The push for equality by Mormon women’s’ groups has escalated in recent years, fueled by growing online and social media communities that allow LDS women from around the country and world to unite and discuss the causes they want to champion. They celebrated a milestone at the previous general conference in April when a woman led a prayer for the first time in the 183-year history of the conference.
The movement began growing in the mid-2000s with the creation of the blog, “Feminist Mormon Housewives,” said Matthew Bowman, assistant professor of religion at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and author of a book about Mormons.
That set off the creation of other blogs and websites, and more recently, Facebook groups. Ordain Women launched earlier this year and has a website with about 150 profiles of people who support its cause and a Facebook page with 1,000 followers.
“What you’ve seen is a digital creation of a community that has really become galvanized,” Bowman said.
Kelly said she and others have heard from church leaders that motherhood is the equivalent if priesthood. Her group disagrees.
“Fatherhood is the appropriate parallel to motherhood,” Kelly said. “Priesthood is separate and apart from gender.”
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There was a much lonelier movement in the late seventies that tried to expand the role of women in the Mormon Church. Sonia Johnson and three other women, whose names I don’t know, made up that movement.
Here’s the website of Ordain Women.
I wish these women strength and luck.