April 15, 2014
No women are allowed to enter the priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Boys as young as 12 years old are.
Ordain Women, a group promoting gender equality in the leadership of the LDS Church, recently staged a peaceful action during the denomination’s General Conference.
Unlike in previous years, no press representatives were allowed in the Temple Square during the General Conference, where the peaceful action took place. Authorities within the denomination tried to put their own spin on the events by patronizingly stating such “divisive actions are not the kind of behavior that is expected from Latter-day Saints and will be as disappointing to our members as it is to church leaders.”
Journalist Holly Welker was there, and describes the event this way:
“The ‘demonstration’ consisted of over 500 men and women standing patiently, calmly and quietly in a line that wrapped three-fourths of the way around the Tabernacle, waiting in some cases longer than two hours for an opportunity to speak with church representative Kim Farah.”
That hardly sounds like a “divisive” action. Certainly not as divisive as a policy that excludes half of church members from leadership, based only on gender.
Click here to read Welker’s informative report about what actually happened. Links are provided to Ordain Women Now’s Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts.
More information on the movement to ordain women in the LDS Church can be found in this article in The Atlantic.
posted by Marg Herder
