MSJack's SLC Tribune Oped Piece

[_Darth J]

I am happy to hear that Ms.Jack's church is pretty near wonderful and pretty near perfect. I have been hearing this for years now. But to my knowledge she has never been Mormon and her husband is. But I am glad that she can have such a opinion.

I appreciate your passive-aggressive swipe suggesting that only by being a Mormon can one evaluate Mormonism. Since that is so, perhaps you could explain how anyone could ever come to believe in Mormonism in the first place, since you have to already believe in Mormon truth claims in order to decide if you believe in Mormon truth claims.

But I have to wonder what would need to be done by a member of her church for her church to excommunicate them. Maybe by constantly disagreeing with doctrine or by causing mayhem in meetings because of it?

To my knowledge, you have never been a member of Ms.Jack's church. But I'm glad you can wonder such things.

I likewise wonder some things. Such as, since neither Kate Kelly nor Ordain Women generally constantly disagreed with doctrine or caused mayhem in meetings, why you think what you said is relevant in any way to the OP.

I also wonder why your immediate reaction to a church that treats adult women like, you know, adults, is, "Yeah, but what does it take to get kicked out of that church?!?"

What if a member of Ms.Jack's church advocated dry humping between unmarried people, when her church explicitly and consistently taught that doing that violated the law of chastity? Do you think a member of Ms.Jack's church might get excommunicated for that? Or what if a member of her church pretended to be a stalwart defender of the faith on the internet while displaying specific ignorance of the church's teachings and culture? Might that get a member of Ms.Jack's church excommunicated?

Or are those just special things that only apply to you when you pretend to be a Mormon?

Perhaps as a member of Jack's church I can begin to proclaim that christ was not perfect and neither was god. Christ showed his imperfection by appointing twelve male apostles. A perfect being would have included at least 6 women.

It's bad enough that you are specifically ignorant of Mormonism while pretending to be a Mormon. Better not to start displaying your specific ignorance of the Bible, too.

And god being a perfect god would have given the notion of birth a choice between female and male. The first two births can be done by the male and the next two births done by the female. But god being imperfect chose just one sex to give birth.

By constantly proclaiming christ to be imperfect, would her church excommunicate me?

The above straw man is especially disingenuous when one recognizes that it does not in the slightest represent anything Kate Kelly said.

But I am glad that Brother Light Cotton can put on this air of sanctimoniousness when he not only directly contradicts the teachings of the church to which he pretends to belong, he's saying it in reference to a church that excommunicated Helmut Hubner for opposing the Nazis but later said his excommunication was a mistake, excommunicated one of its bishops for opposing polygamy and then abandoned the practice, and excommunicated one of its employees for opposing the priesthood ban and then abandoned it. You have no basis at all for this affectation of moral superiority.

[_MsJack]

Thank you all for the kind words. I am glad you enjoyed the op-ed.

[_Kishkumen]

All Mormon women have equal access to authority. So what?

Your wife has been complaining about her lack of access to your authority for months.

[_Kishkumen]

Thank you all for the kind words. I am glad you enjoyed the op-ed.

Well done, Jack.

Daniel took time to insult it, but had no rebuttal. Obviously he has no substantive response. You stumped him!

[_EAllusion]

I've seen several posters here argue something to the effect of, "The priesthood isn't real, so women aren't missing out by being denied fake powers."

While it is true that if you think the LDS priesthood doesn't confer special spiritual gifts, which virtually everyone reading this thread does, then lacking the priesthood doesn't rob women of the chance to do things like offer legitimate faith healing. It's a placebo ritual after all. But this misses the point.

The priesthood carries with it temporal status and authority that affects how females relate to males in LDS subculture. The consequences of this are numerous and harmful. It some ways it is subtle; in other ways it is not. The catague how LDS separate but "equal" mentality ripples into people's lives is complex enough to be a topic of a book and probably requires a 20+ page essay to do minimal justice to. MsJack doesn't have that luxury when submitting a brief op-ed. She did the smart thing and picked a single example for rhetorical purposes that is easily relatedable and discusses a difference in treatment that impacts something meaningful to people. Others may have picked a different example, I think I would have, but she took the best rhetorical approach.

The money line is, "In any case, there is no such thing as equality without equal access to authority. Therefore, any talk of Mormon women being equal to Mormon men free from ordination to the priesthood is perfect nonsense."

My only quibble here is that an LDS audience is apt to sincerely react like BCSpace cynically did. Women have equal access through access to their husbands, fathers, etc. That's why you might have to explicitly explain what's wrong with that. Actually explaining what's wrong with that screwed up logic might take a paragraph or two, so an analogy like mine might be the best bet to do the trick.

[_Gadianton]

The priesthood carries with it temporal status and authority that affects how females relate to males in LDS subculture.

One counter argument might be that priesthood is illusionary in a sense nearly as important as the fact that blessings don't actually do anything. It's false on its face that the president of the relief society has "less authority" than a deacon. The relief society president has all kinds of organizational power that most deacons grown into "High Priests" will never see. That a deacon can pass the sacrament could be considered on par with a telecom tech having a key to the wiring closet of the building he works at -- a privilege few executives have, but one ultimately of little importance. Heck, as we've seen lately, we have "official spokespersons" who are women who are speaking for the Church in ways relatively few men ever will. To me, there are a couple of important issues. One, is that women are forced to confess sins to male leaders, something which I would never have been able to let a daughter do. The other is there is the one-to-one women's to men's clubs end at the level of ward bishop and dry council.

But then, I think most people's brains discount the alleged "priesthood" in day-to-day interaction with peers. Sure, there are some men who "abuse their priesthood" and make their wives subservient, but that's more of a function of a man just being an ass as men are, and for every man behaving in this way, some other quiet guy full of priesthood power is getting his ass whooped by his wife.

[_MsJack]

The priesthood carries with it temporal status and authority that affects how females relate to males in LDS subculture. The consequences of this are numerous and harmful. It some ways it is subtle; in other ways it is not. The catague how LDS separate but "equal" mentality ripples into people's lives is complex enough to be a topic of a book and probably requires a 20+ page essay to do minimal justice to. MsJack doesn't have that luxury when submitting a brief op-ed. She did the smart thing and picked a single example for rhetorical purposes that is easily relatedable and discusses a difference in treatment that impacts something meaningful to people. Others may have picked a different example, I think I would have, but she took the best rhetorical approach.

I thought I'd comment on this for a second. I chose the example of a baby blessing for the following reasons:

• Because it's an example where LDS practice is quite atypical. Even in churches that don't ordain women (such as Roman Catholicism), it is normal for the mother, godmother, or other female relatives to be standing at the front of the congregation for the ceremony and holding the child as s/he is baptized or dedicated. It's seen as a family event, so relatives are usually invited to be there even if they aren't Christian. This helps to highlight the absurdity of the extent of Mormon exclusion from the priesthood and show that it isn't as simple as keeping women from being the equivalent of a Catholic priest or Protestant pastor.
• Because it's an example where, when you think about it, if Mormons really were family-oriented and really did honor and respect mothers and motherhood, then of course they would allow women to participate if they want to. (You're not going to let a new mother hold her own baby? Seriously?)
• Because women could easily be included without ordination to the priesthood, yet Mormon leaders insist on making it a matter of ordination. (Though the fact that non-LDS male relatives are sometimes allowed to do things like hold the microphone suggests that the policy is more anti-woman than pro-ordination.)
• Because my son's dedication really was a tender and recent experience for me, which gave me the chance to make a sincere emotional appeal from personal experience.
• Because I'm probably one of the few people in existence who can say that my children had both an LDS blessing & naming ceremony and a dedication in another Christian denomination. Mormons are forever trying to use their own subjective experiences as some kind of trump card in the conversation. That's nice. I have experienced what they've experienced in this case, and participation was a better experience for me.

So, that's why I settled on a baby blessing as the example to use.

[_Bazooka]

Is your husband getting heat locally as a result of your public voice?

[_Spanner]

I am happy to hear that Ms.Jack's church is pretty near wonderful and pretty near perfect. I have been hearing this for years now. But to my knowledge she has never been Mormon and her husband is. But I am glad that she can have such a opinion. But I have to wonder what would need to be done by a member of her church for her church to excommunicate them. Maybe by constantly disagreeing with doctrine or by causing mayhem in meetings because of it?

Perhaps as a member of Jack's church I can begin to proclaim that christ was not perfect and neither was god. Christ showed his imperfection by appointing twelve male apostles. A perfect being would have included at least 6 women. And god being a perfect god would have given the notion of birth a choice between female and male. The first two births can be done by the male and the next two births done by the female. But god being imperfect chose just one sex to give birth.

By constantly proclaiming christ to be imperfect, would her church excommunicate me?

Hey dip****. Do you know who the first apostles were -- according to the definition provided in Acts?

Can you name them? Of course you can't.

Let me help you out. Mary and Mary. The first witnesses of Jesus' resurrection. Two women who had been with him from the beginning. Do you know what that makes them? The very first apostles. Chosen before Peter,James, and John who lacked faith.

Don't forget Junia, one of the first [women] amongst the apostles.

[_Spanner]

Brilliant article MsJack. DCP has gone full strawman.

I (as an atheist) participated fully when my two boys were christened by a Catholic priest; on each occasion, I held the baby as my husband stood next to me. Only two of four godparents was actually Catholic; all participated. I viewed the ceremony as a celebration of my kids joining a caring community who committed to raising and loving them. The Catholics may be second unto the Mormons for relegating women to the backbenches, but I felt a hell of a lot more inclusiveness there than any of the innumerable, various, LDS milestone services I attended before my apostasy. I had actually asked my father to speak at the christening; he had agreed, but it was my mother who raised Cain and prevented either of them from attending the christening services.

So, what I am trying to say is that services for welcoming newborns into a community are hugely important to mothers of all stripes. That a faithful mother must stand aside as her child is inducted into the community is awful. Your totally apt comparison with an unrighteous father is a perfect example of the disdain shown to faithful women in the LDS community.