Reply #46: I was interested in the LDS church once [View All]

[Cherchez la Femme]

in the early 80's, a time when I was socially aware (environment, equal rights, etc.) but not following politics at all.

I had visited the Joseph Smith House in Palmyra, NY and the 'glade' where he supposedly had the visitation of the Angel Moroni (telling name?) and, to me at that time, it DID feel 'holy'. To this day I don't understand why I felt that ...perhaps I picked up on the reverence of the elders, I don't know. In any event, I signed up to receive visits and, perhaps then, instruction in the Mormon Faith.

There were two things that bothered me greatly about the organized religion, however. One was the separation of the men and women in worship, and that only men could be 'preachers' (it's been so long I forget the name of their 'priests' or 'reverends'). The other was their fight against the Equal Rights Amendment (luckily for me, it was the ERA era) which I was most definitely was for. What self-respecting woman wouldn't be for equal rights?

Both male and female missionaries (the men were called Elders but I don't think the women were) had the nerve to tell me that 'the reason the church was against the ERA was because it would mean that men and women would have to use the same bathrooms'!

What kind of simplistic idiot --moron, I-- did they think they were talking to, that I would find that kind of answer in the least bit credible? They used that excuse, with a straight face no less, to deny equal rights for women!

Seriously, they actually said that and from the sound of it, it was by rote. This must have been the excuse issued from their 'apostles' (or whatever they call their leading group of 12 old, white, conservative men) to give to those interested in joining up.
Or could they ALL possibly be so ignorant as to actually believe that?

Nah, those 'in' the LDS church knew exactly what it was all about -- even the women embrace their role of 2nd class members of society and they convince themselves they LIKE it.