In the 1954 landmark US Supreme Court case Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, the doctrine of segregation of students based on race was overturned.

You think people would learn from history, but the mormon church treats the management of its priesthood in a similarly ancient way that I would call different but equal.

I concede that major differences exist between that case and the policy of the mormon church, but wrong is still wrong. To discriminate against someone based on race, gender, or sexuality is simply wrong. It may be legal for a church but it is immoral.

The mormon church requires its female members to content themselves to not hold priesthood offices. They must also endure the patronizing tones of entrenched church leadership explaining that they really do weild priesthood power.

Multiple speakers in this weekend's televised snooze fest explained that women exercise priesthood power in mormon temples delegated to them by the temple president. They exercise priesthood power in all of their callings when they are set apart by one who has keys, such as a bishop or a stake president for example. They can even preside in their own home as long as their man is not around. How very generous the mormon god is to his daughters.

Women can exercise priesthood power when men say its ok. Its not unequal, it's just different. Both men and women exercise priesthood power, but only men hold priesthood offices.

You see, women still can't give a priesthood blessing to a sick child, but that is not because they are women but because one must hold a priesthood office to administer a blessing , which they cannot hold because they are women. I guess that clears that up.

Since Brown in 1954, a mormon woman could have been born, educated, completed a career and retired. Isn't it time that the mormon church stops its doctrine of different but equal when separate but equal has been cast down her entire life?

And why give all the lip service to the equality of women? The mormon hierarchichy has a problem. They only want to make it look like they are doing the right thing. They want it to look like they have always done the right thing. They just don't want things to change.

I expect it will take a change to the US constitution to make them change, which they will fight. Its a good thing they don't have a lot of money or influence.

I didn't want priesthood power and didn't think I needed it. It was just another job, which is how my dad treated it. He really DID NOT like going to give blessings when asked, which didn't happen often. I didn't understand as a kid what that was all about. He didn't give us blessings, etc.

If I wanted to bless my child, I'd do it anyway. I only for a very short time looked to the priesthood to give me blessings and that was when I was trying to save my gay husband. Every blessing I got I felt a stupor of thought and I had PREPARED extensively for each blessing, hoping and hoping. The priesthood means nothing to me and never has.

If the women want it and they aren't getting it, they should just leave or whatever. When I was a single mother and still had HT, they sent me a couple and they mentioned that I did have priesthood in my home. Well, I was inactive, too, and my house was very peaceful. My kids very seldom argued and I seldom argued with them. They were great teenagers. I didn't need no priesthood in my home and I called and requested NO HT after they told me that.

Every time I "leaned" on the priesthood holders to help me, they failed me. It is amazing how messed up it all is. It isn't a matter of women having the priesthood. Why don't they just GET RID OF IT. (And women wield A LOT of power in mormonism. I have no doubt my neighbor the bishop--that his wife runs that family and my other neighbor who used to be bishop, his wife runs that family, too.)

There is no such thing as "different but equal".

Mormon leaders have tried to tell people that women and men are equal partners in families and in the governance of their church.

But they can't be equal because they are applied differently.

I grew up hearing that women are so holy that they don't need the priesthood. Isn't that special? Men need a priesthood office to get sealed in the temple, but women can get there without it. Isn't that extra special?

Separate but different does not exist. It is an oxymoron. However, it is what mormon leaders sell to their followers.

It shows that all are equal, but some are more equal than others. (Animal Farm)

It also shows that 2+2=5 when the party wants it to be. (1984)

The mormon church builds its billions by manufacturing inequality and marketing it as love.

An LDS woman can give a blessing to a sick child if she wants to. What she does in her own home isn’t subject to overseers—that is, unless, she gives the Morg leadership or her husband the opportunity to do so.

I baptized my own children WITHOUT the Morg’s permission—mainstream Christianity (including Catholics and Orthodox) has always considered baptism valid when done with faith and in the name of the Triune God. Why would I let a cult interfere with my desire to bless or baptize my children?

Just a guess, there are more TBMs doing their own versions of these.

Did you hack God’s computer? I thought they pressed the “delete” button on your priesthood. Remote decommissioning doesn’t require your knowledge or presence. They’re so efficient. Why can’t they just redeem the dead that way?

Different but equal---one of the principles of bigotry.

Back in the first half of the last century, whites and blacks could both drink water--- from separate fountains. Equal?

The Rat Pack could all go on stage and sing and entertain---So long as Sammy went through the kitchen to get there.

Everybody else fought for equality. Why won't Mormon women? The women leaders at the head of the church are all Judas Nanny Goats.

For me, it took a lot of education and experience to see myself as fully equal. When I was a young teen, I started to read feminist literature. Some of the books I read over and over again. When your culture sees you as not fully capable, you often see yourself that way as well. It takes a lot of mental reconditioning to break out of that mindset.

This is it, summer. What you say.

God bless Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and Helen Thomas and most of all MURPHY BROWN and everybody who stood up and yelled, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" And the drag queens and trans who threw bricks at the police at Stonewall and Rosa parks and those dear boys who stood with their fists in the air at the Olympics.

Slowly all the less than's realized they never were.


Why is it indoctrination working on the Mormon women? WHY?

All I can figure is that the Mormon brainwashing is extra strength and more effective than the regular brands. Do they really want to be goddesses in the CK so badly that they will accept any treatment at all to get there. They participate in their own demise for hell's sakes!


My first WTF moment as a TBM was getting my endowments and seeing my mother pull a veil over her face, bow her head, and say yes to the men.



Claiming they feel equal, are equal, is just a way to not admit the truth.

ha ha. I, D&D, said "God bless." Old habits die hard. Still it has a nice meaning like "May the Force be with you."

>>All I can figure is that the Mormon brainwashing is extra strength and more effective than the regular brands.

As an outsider, it has always seemed that way to me, from the 3-hour block (now two,) youth groups, seminary, EFY, the mission, BYU, FHE, Family prayer and scripture reading, The Ensign, etc. It's a *lot*.

I left Catholicism as a young teen, at the same age as I started to read the feminist literature. I refused to see myself as "less than." I also refused to see what Catholicism refers to as "artificial" birth control as a sin.

But it really, really hit me one Sunday (many years later) as I walked into an Episcopal cathedral in NYC -- the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is the largest cathedral in the world. I was there to attend their annual St. Francis's Feast Day service, which always attracts lots of visitors. Hundreds of people were pouring into the cathedral. At the head of the aisle, right in front of the altar, stood a female priest. She was wearing her clerical robes, and stood proudly, self-assured and confident, welcoming people to her church. She was one of the people in charge -- she knew it, and she acted like it. Although I knew that there were female priests and ministers, this was the first time I had seen one in person.

*For the very first time,* I saw myself in that priest. It was a very powerful moment. It was a spiritual awakening. It made me realize for just how many years, as a Catholic, I had felt (without even knowing it!) "lesser than" for never seeing a woman in the most important church leadership roles.

In my opinion, Mormon women get the "lesser than" message on a consistent basis without even realizing it. They are unknowingly beaten so far down, that they have no concept of "up."

was treated as the fringe element as my dad wasn't very active and he was not a typical mormon man in the least. Mormon men were afraid of him as he was a tough strong man. He looked like and acted like John Wayne. He was 6 feet 3 inches or more. He towered over most men. He played football for USU. That kind of gives you an idea of how he was.

My mother was the daughter of 2 deaf parents, the oldest child, who took on taking care of them and translating for them when she was very, very young. She took care of them until they died, but she was very quiet. One stupid woman told me once that our family wasn't meant to lead. My dad didn't want to lead in the lds church.

Anyway, all of us, not just the females, felt like second class citizens. My brothers still do. My brothers are also all 6 feet 3 inches and STRONG. You don't want to pick a fight with them. My nephews are the same.

But we all felt like secondclass as mormons and most of us are out. It was such a relief to realize I didn't have to be mormon. Like I've said so many times, some of the mormon men I worked with at Thiokol treated me like a queen. I'm still friends with those who are still alive. They changed my world. I've never once thought I was less than since.

Mormonism really is an equal opportunity feel like you are less than religion. Take don bagley as an example.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2020 11:29AM by cl2.

D&D, I'm more optimistic than you. I'd say that education and information ARE driving women away--it's just that the effect is on young women rather than older ones. And it is not limited to them. Young men are rejecting the bigotry as well, bigotry regarding women and non-cis people and race, which is why the church is losing an entire generation.

And that generation is taking its children and friends.

You trying to give me hope, LW? Please continue.

I do have little in my life to tell me what is going on with the younger generation Mormons. I only see my myriad nieces and nephews who are as stuck into the misogyny as deeply as the older generations in my family. I hope they are not indicative of Mormon youth at large.

Packer said the three enemies of the Mormon church were intellectuals, the ERA, and the gay agenda, or however he worded that trio---but those three and common sense do seem to be what the younger generation may be most affected by.

I'm pretty sure Packer listed four categories of enemies, the fourth being feminists. And as a pseudo-intellectual, I insist that you note he denounced "pseudo-intellectuals!"

But yes, people in their late teens and 20s are leaving the church in droves. You see the reason in polls, which suggest that 70% of young Mormons are completely indifferent to gender identity and similarly divergent in other social areas. Recall that the shift in the missionary age to 18/19 was an attempt to get those kids before they left home for college.

The church is so out of touch with young people that its hold on them is very weak.

I think the problem lies with not explaining things well. From a biblical interpretation there exists an order of men above women, women above children. Men and women have dominion above animals and nature. But some churches have discontinued that, and believe in equality, which is fine. And other churches continue with tradition but don't explain it well, such as the Mormon church. They go on and on about how much god loves everyone, how prejudice is evil, and how much they condemn this and that, but then they are the ones being prejudice. Another issue is that mormondom promotes business leaders and lawyers as leaders, These are the kind of men who have background in theology, or have even read the bible before. Aside from Packer, who had a BS degree in seminary teaching and theology, none of them are credentialed or qualified to lead a church. So that's likely why they don't make much sense sometimes. Especially when they go on and on about women.

Sorry I should preview before posting.
"These are the kind of men who have background in theology," should read
"These aren't the kind of men who have background in theology,"