I will dispense with the worst first. One Mark Paredes has authored a piece for the "Jewish Journal", entitled, "Why was a Mormon feminist excommunicated?" I regret the fact that Mark Paredes has undertaken to represent the LDS community to the Jewish community on this matter because, frankly, he does a shamefully poor job of it.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/jews_and_mormons/item/why_was_a_mormon_feminist_excommunicated
This Mormon ambassador to the Jewish community (Mark is a member of the Jewish Relations Committee of the LDS Church's Southern California Public Affairs Council) tells his Jewish reader right out of the gate that he is well qualified to suggest who should be ejected from the Jewish community, were they wise like Mormons and still excommunicating people.
Excommunication is no longer a Jewish practice, though I could certainly come up with a few candidates if it were ever restored.
The irony here is that he is writing the piece because:
[T]wo Jewish women sent me emails asking how Mormons could justify his action.
Maybe they are among his candidates for future excommunications from the Jewish community?
You probably noticed that what prompted Mark's triumphalist article on the excommunication of Kate Kelly was the outrage of some Jewish women at the thought of the same event. So, Mark's reaction to this is to write diplomatically to the Jewish community about how they might want to bring back the practice of excommunication.
Then Mark shows exactly how much compassion Mormons exercise toward lost members of the community with the following comment:
I wanted to explain to my Jewish readers why most Mormons aren’t losing sleep over this.
Indeed. The excommunication of a believing LDS woman is nothing to "lose sleep over", evidently, if you are Mark Paredes or among the Mormons he knows.
No doubt, too, that Mark's Jewish readers shared his outrage and justification when they read about what got Kelly tossed from the fold of Christ:
On two occasions she got hundreds of people to show up on Temple Square in Salt Lake City during General Conference, the semiannual gathering of Mormons from around the world, to request complimentary tickets to the men-only priesthood sessions.
"Requesting complimentary tickets" is an affront not to be tolerated. I am sure Mark's Jewish readers were won over by this explanation.
Mark tells us that he has some "beefs" with Kelly. I will share some of the more sadly humorous examples.
Mark assures us that Kelly was:
peddling a solution to a “problem” that doesn’t exist. Anyone who thinks that women’s voices aren’t heard and valued by LDS leaders has never been a bishop. Every Sunday I conduct a 90-minute leadership meeting (ward council) which several women leaders attend. I actively seek their advice and counsel, which they are very willing to give, and rely heavily on them to help me and my assistants to strengthen families in our congregation.
Here's the thing about problems, Mark. Problems are subjective. As you noted earlier:
Kate’s beliefs about women and the priesthood are not unique, and she is hardly the first LDS woman to share them with others. I’m fairly positive that there are Mormon women in most if not all wards (large congregations) in the country who hold similar views.
So, in spite of your openness in allowing women to attend leadership meetings, where you seek their advice and counsel, some women still perceive a problem. My guess is that some of them are in your ward. Perhaps it is because they know a bigoted bishopric member with a mediocre IQ who by virtue of his biological gender gets to tell them what to do, while they are only able to give advice.
Here is another of Mark's "beefs":
My final beef with Kate was that her goal was ultimately self-promotion, not gender equality. As if further proof were needed, she chose to attend a public vigil in her honor in Utah on the day that her disciplinary council was held in Virginia in her absence. Although Kate was invited to participate in the council via Skype, she preferred to whine in public and hide behind her blog instead of defending her beliefs in person to church leaders. I’m glad to see that this intellectual cowardice was not rewarded.
So, you see, although Kate's stake president went out of his way to prevent her from facing a disciplinary council in her new home state of Utah (he petitioned the First Presidency to freeze her records), when he knew she was moving out of state and it would be financially burdensome to return to Virginia, Kate is obviously in the wrong for not attending electronically when she had the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, Mark conveniently forgets to mention that Kate had provided a letter to present her defense to the council.
Now, lest we doubt Mark's milk of human kindness runneth over its capacious cup, he ends on this positive note:
I do hope that Kate finds more productive ways to spend her time. I also hope that she eventually decides to come back to the church without preconditions. Until that time, relatively few Mormons will lament the exit of an apostate from our ranks.
You go, Mark.