Cheers to the Badly Behaved Mormon Women

Despite the  growing surge of members who are abandoning the faith,  the LDS Church continues to pour millions into advertising to impress nonmembers, while, at the same time, it ignores, insults or marginalizes some of its own. The most recent example came last week when, after ignoring 5 formal meeting requests from the Mormon feminist group Ordain Women, the LDS Church granted a 90 minute audience to the newly formed, obedience-oriented Mormon Women Stand.

As many of my gentle readers no doubt already know, Mormon Women Stand is the brainchild of Kathryn Skaggs, author of the blog, A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman. Her blog title, I assume, condescendingly refers to the Mormon feminist, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who famously said, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Whether the reference was intentional or not, Skaggs' blog posts have thus far been forgettable. For example, her recent argument that the film, Frozen, is part of "the gay agenda." (Spoofed here on Ward Gossip.)

I've been a little hard on the Mormon feminists over the years. Too hard probably. But perhaps that's because I used to be one. I remember the indignities--the premature releasings from callings, the warnings to my husband to get me in line, and, of course, the painfully patronizing explanations. But, Sister Banta, you get to have babies. -- Sister Banta, if you had the priesthood, which calling would you want? The mere mention of these memories has me covering my ears and screaming, "Make it STOP!"

In my mind, the most obvious solution was to leave the LDS Church. But then I'm no longer a believer, and the church members who support Ordain Women clearly are. Otherwise, the group would never have issued a public "thank you" today to LDS Public Affairs director, Michael Otterson, for suggesting their organization was "divisive and suggestive of apostasy."

One of the more comic aspects of this drama has been the assumption by the "well-behaved" sisters that those in the Ordain Women crowd are not really believers--for example, the reactions to Joanna Brooks' recent post on Feminist Mormon Housewives. Oh, they're believers all right. Nothing but the deepest belief could motivate an LDS woman to stand up to her priesthood leaders, and then stick around church to suffer the consequences.

In that spirit, tonight I raise my Friday night cocktail and say, "Cheers to the badly behaved Mormon women."

I hope that they will make history. I also hope that as they go forward, some will realize that there are many paths to spiritual fulfillment, even outside of Mormonism.

Because, in the near future, I doubt that the General Authorities will be entertaining any requests from Mormon feminists--unless they want to star in an "And I'm a Mormon" ad.