TSCC, among other things, has demonstrated the ability to change doctrine and beliefs without concedeing their claim to absolute authority. I see gay marriage and women and the priesthood much like blacks and the priesthood, it is only a matter of time before GA's give into societal pressure. What I don't believe is that TSCC will ever disappear, they will change to keep members and retain "authority."

It occurs to me that in order to do this, theology must be revised in at least three rather large areas. The first area will be women and the priesthood - heterosexual couples will become co-gods and equals through eternity. Heavenaly Mother will be reintroduced and valued. Second will be the reintroduction of spiritual polyandry leading to granting temple marriage to same sex couples as co-gods through eternity. Perhaps those who assist with eternal spirit production will be given Angel status.

Of course the easier thing to do would be to admit their world view on sex and gods is bogus, but that is unlikely. They would lose the "authority" of the temple ordinance, an import
bind on the membership.

I predict that TSCC must get this done, or something similar, in the next 70 years. If this is the case, I suspect that ordaining women to the priesthood is something that will happen soon.

The Mormon church is going to have to make quite a few major, painful changes in the next few decades ... or become even more irrelevant than it already is.

I definitely see them giving into the gay thing in the not too distant future. Not sure about the women & priesthood thing though. 99% of the Mormon women seem perfectly content to be led my men and not have the priesthood. This doesn't seem to be that much of an issue in other churches either. I mean in the Bible there weren't any female apostles or prophets either. Until society starts really giving TSCC hell for something, they don't usually change.

Both of these issues boil down to the same thing: equality of the sexes. It might have been a mistake to give every Mormon male the priesthood in the first place, rather than having a small, educated group that was called to lead, like every other Christian religion. If women have the priesthood too, everyone leads and no one follows. This is the same issue with same sex marriage. In temple marriage, the male calls the female through the veil. If there are two males or two females, who leads and who follows? There would have to be another vast re-working of the temple ceremony. As a lesbian woman, I can tell you my first issue with the church was not their hostility towards gay people, but the idea that women were "inferior spirits" who were not worthy of the priesthood, needed a male to secure their entrance into heaven, and even if exalted to Goddesshood, were only one of a nameless herd of brood mares making spirit children for a superior God. Of course, I'd love to see the church evolve (not that I'd return even if they did), just as I'd like to see the Catholics evolve on the priesthood issue. It will be easier for the Catholics to do this than it will be for the Mormons. The Catholics don't have to ordain every member in order to make that change.