My Experience Fighting for Female Equality in My Church

The train rocked back and forth as I looked down at my book.  I couldn’t focus on the words, but I didn’t want to look at the people around me.  Not right now.  I knew that I was an island of isolation among a growing sea of suits.  The men of my church were heading to the semi-annual priesthood session of conference.  They chatted happily while I tried to hide in my cave of anxiety.  Excitement and dread gripped me.  The words of my book were no longer making it into my brain, so I shut it and looked up.  Were there others on this train like me?  I scanned the crowd.  Then I saw her.  She looked familiar from the online forums that I had been part of for months.  She wore a purple coat, purple being the symbolic color of the Ordain Women movement.  I hesitated to speak to her, knowing how other people feel about our movement.  For months I’ve been drowning under ridicule, hate, antagonism…I am an outcast because I see inequality where others don’t.  I have chosen to speak up in a culture where silence is respected.  If I spoke up now, and let this girl know who I was, how would she respond?  I wasn’t positive she was one of us.  But the purple coat spoke to me, so I took a deep breath and made my way over to her.

        “Are you with Ordain Women?” I asked.

        She looked up and for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of dread in her face as well.  Then relief washed over both of us as we realized we were among friends, allies.  We moved quickly to a place where we could sit together and an energy of love and excitement suddenly surrounded us.  The feeling of isolation and anxiety abated. There is something very powerful in just being in the presence of a like-minded soul.  I was among one of my sisters, someone I didn’t have to explain myself to, someone who understood perfectly and wouldn’t hurt me with well-meaning daggers.  And we were headed to the center, to a place where hundreds of like-minded people were gathering. 

        When we arrived at the park, women and men were chatting excitedly.  Soon the devotional began.  Nadine McComes Hanson led the music.  Nadine has been fighting for the priesthood and equality for women long before the internet and the ability to have hundreds and thousands of voices supporting hers.  We sang “Come Come, Ye Saints,” a song that our pioneer foremothers and fathers sang as they pressed forward to a place where they could rest from persecution and build the kingdom of God in peace.  We sang the last verse for Nadine, “And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day!  All is well!”  How long will this battle last?  Will I see the fruits of it in my own life?

        After the song, Kate Kelly, the founder of Ordain Women spoke.  "Before Ordain Women I was afraid to speak my truth.  I was afraid to say what I really think.  I was afraid to point out the obvious fact that men and women are not equal in our Church.  And, it occurred to me that if, as a well-educated, self-confident woman I was unable to say what I think, it must be extremely difficult for every Mormon woman who thinks like me to speak out.  It is so hard to speak up when you feel alone."  Yes!  Alone, I thought the problem was all in my head.  Now I was surrounded by hundreds of other people who saw the same problems I did.  Our power came from speaking up together.  "I am not invisible.  Now I know that there are hundreds and thousands of other people who can see it just as clearly as I can.  We are not invisible."
        Then my friend Abby got up to speak.  "I have never stood on the sidelines of the church," she said.  "I have young women leaders who would be disappointed to know that I am here, but they are the ones who taught me the values that brought me here today...faith, knowledge, and especially integrity."  I looked around.  None of these women and men were ones to stand on the sidelines of the church.  They were the rising stars of Mormonism, the ones who devoted everything to the church.  They came from the center and providence had pushed them to this place.

       As the closing prayer ended, we lined up and started for Temple Square.  Just outside the park men were shouting at us that we need to submit to our husbands as Eve Submitted to Adam.  These were men who hated our church, but hated us even more.  Their voices carried after me from behind as I began crossing the street to an echo of honks and people in nice clothing yelling at us from their cars.  These were members of our church who were taught alongside us in Sunday School that the first great commandment is love.  As the wind began to pick up with a mighty ferocity, I wondered at the dichotomy that lay before me.  Anti-Mormons hated me for what I was doing, Mormons hated me for what I was doing, only God knew what was truly in my heart.  Suddenly hail began pelting us, and the angry voices disappeared in the noise of the weather.  We pressed forward against the torrent which began to abate as we walked onto the holy grounds of our religion, Temple Square.

        I looked around as the sun began to filter in through the clouds.  I pictured a younger me visiting temple square with my family, doing service projects there with youth groups, coming to conference with friends during college.  I walked past the reflection pool and saw myself as a young woman, posing for a picture with my soul mate on our wedding day.  This was my place.  This is where I belong.  Yet only weeks ago, Church PR had told us not to come, not to make this public request.  We have been told that we are only a divisive group, apostates bent on ruining the church.  I have personally been told to leave.  I don’t belong in this church with the burdens and the questions I carry.  We were told that we belonged outside with the protesters, those men yelling hateful things at us.  But we were not protesters.  I felt like I was visiting Temple Square like I had so many times in my youthful, blissfully faithful days.  Today was no different, except that I was there seeking a Balm of Gilead.  I was surrounded by others like me, who carried burdens resulting from inequality in the Church. 

        The event was peaceful and anti-climactic.  We walked peacefully to the Tabernacle, stood peacefully in line, and waited patiently to speak individually with a PR lady.  She was warm and friendly, as she listened to our concerns and bore our burdens.  As I talked to her, I wondered how much further along we could be as a people if all our members acted the way she did.  Even if we don’t understand, can’t we at least speak warmly and listen, bearing each other’s burdens as we have covenanted to do?  I had an inclination as I spoke to her to reach out and hug her, but I faltered.  We were pitted against each other on opposite sides.  I wasn’t supposed to hug her, she was the other…or I was.  As I started to walk past her I had a moment’s relapse and I turned and touched her shoulder.  Our eyes connected and for a moment we looked into each other’s souls.  We were one, sisters, bound by love, though differing in our views and positions.  I was reminded that this is not about me fighting against the church.  I can’t make them “the other,” the way I have felt them do to me.  This is only about speaking my truth.  Suddenly I felt the energy drain out of me and I found a quiet place to sit down.  All the effort and sacrifice we had all made to be here, was it worth it?  Had we been heard?  Of course we didn’t expect to be let in.  But we wanted to be heard.
       My answer came about twenty minutes later when I pulled out my phone and read the official Church PR statement.  It said that we had refused ushers’ directions and refused to leave when asked.  "While not all the protesters were members of the church, 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.”  I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  Had these PR reps seen the same event I had seen?  We had been dignified and respectful, yet that was not the report the Church was giving.  With no outside witness to back us up, since the news media had been denied access, it was our word against theirs.  Here it was again, us vs. them.  No, they had not heard us, and they had no intention of listening.  Unlike the lovely woman at the door, our church did not care about the sacrifices we had made, did not care about the pain we experienced in standing up and speaking about our feelings and experiences as women in the church.  Our church wanted only to paint us as the other.
        But we are not other.  We are not apostates, we are not anti-mormon protestors, we are not any number of things that the church wants us to be so that they can dismiss us.  We are the church.  We have devoted our whole lives in service to this church.  It is our home and we want to use our talents and energy to make it better.  We have a precious beautiful truth to share.  In a book called the Alchemist, by Paulo Cohelo, the Alchemist comes up against some guards and they ask him what he has in his pockets.  He pulls out a stone and a flask and tells them that they are the philosopher’s stone which will turn everything to gold, and the elixir of life, which will cure all ills.  They laugh and send him on his way.  The boy who is with him asks incredulously why he told them that.  He says, "...when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed."  This is how I felt on Saturday as the truth I offered was dismissed so easily.

Tribalism Part VI: Religion

        This last post of my tribalism series is going to be my hardest post yet.  I wish religion didn’t need to be tribalistic.  I wish we could be bonded by love and faith, not separated by beliefs and theories.  Psychologically, we thirst after meaning.  We want the world to make sense.  We want life to extend beyond now.  So furiously we cling to the beliefs that are handed down to us.  They help us to maintain order and a sense of security. 

        But opposing beliefs can’t co-exist.  My favorite part of the book, “The Life of Pi” is when Pi is surrounded by his Catholic Priest, his Muslim Imam, and his Hindu Pandit.  They each praise him for being such a good student of their respective religions, until they realize that he is also a student of the other two.  Outraged, they contend with each other about the falseness of the other religions.  The exchange is humorous and it sheds light on how silly it is for one religion to claim all the truth for its followers.  I believe that religion is about gaining spiritual maturity and obtaining pure love.  There is no maturity, nor love in the war between religions. 

        One tribe will call itself the true church, and refer to everyone else as heathens, infidels, gentiles, “the world,” or non-members.  Straw men of sinners and followers of Satan are created to spark fear and to keep those within the tribe from exploring and understanding the other.  In my experience, other straw men become a threat to the tribe: intellectuals and liberals.  A great cliff of apostasy is created and fear is used to keep tribal members as far from that cliff as possible. 

        I spent the first thirty years of my life beautifully, peacefully living amongst a religious tribe that I loved.  I lived an orthodox life and I was, as they say in my religion, “A member in good standing.”  I learned the doctrine inside and out.  I served in leadership positions.  I devoted my whole life to my tribe.  My life has been what it is because of my religion.  It introduced me to God and to faith.  It taught me that I could achieve high standards of moral conduct and it taught me how to live providently.  Because I was orthodox, I felt a sense of community and love from my tribe.  Like I mentioned in my first post, tribalism can be a beautiful thing. 

        But then I was cast out of the Garden of Eden into the cold harsh world.  My curious mind led me to understand the “other” and to realize that they are not so different from me.  How am I any different from the Muslim woman who devotes herself to Allah, prays four times a day, lives a good life, loves a lot, and sacrifices to make her pilgrimage to Mecca?  Her rituals are sacred to her and mine are sacred to me.  They are different.  Our beliefs about eternity are different.  But our faith is the same.  Why would a loving God choose only one of us because the other’s sacred rituals and beliefs were not the right ones. 

        This new way of thinking took me to the edge of the apostasy cliff, and I jumped off.  Guess what?  It wasn’t really the scary cliff I had grown up believing in.  In fact, I found a bridge.  It’s a bridge that unites the world by love and faith.  Unfortunately, this bridge is invisible.  All my tribe can see is me, and apostasy.  I have to admit, it’s pretty scary to be on an invisible bridge over a cliff of apostasy.  So I turned back for love and support, but I found that I was already “the other,” so easily dismissed and cast out by my tribe. 

        I wanted to share with my tribe the beautiful world I had found beyond ours.  I wanted the love and support I had always found from them when I did what was expected.  Instead, they threw straw men at me.  I was one of the elect being led astray by Satan, I had lost my testimony, lost the spirit…I had been deceived.  Out of fear, I was pushed away at arm’s length.  I understand that the bullying is not out of malice.  Bullying is a necessary part of tribalism.  It keeps people from leaving by causing a “pain of independence.” 

        I still love my religion.  It is home.  It’s part of me.  I crossed my bridge, but I came back.  And I will always come back.  I don’t fit in like I used to.  But I come back because I hope that someday the great gulf of apostasy won’t divide us and keep us from understanding the true purpose of our religion: to love and understand each other. This love and understanding is the bridge that I now call home and I hope that someday it will no longer be invisible.

Tribalism Part V: Liberals vs. Conservatives

        I was born in beautiful suburbia to a conservative family.  I had a safe and happy childhood.  I love my conservative upbringing.  I was part of the tribe, mostly because I was young and didn’t understand politics.  I just went with the flow, drawing mustaches on Bill Clinton’s face every chance I got.  He and the other democrats were the enemy of course, and I had to do my part, right? 

        But then I grew up and found a different worldview.  I received a liberal education in college and experienced my first election between Bush and Kerry.  As much as I loved my conservative upbringing, and as safe as it had felt, I knew that something deep down in my core made me liberal.  I accepted the democrats’ message, while trying to gag down the republican one.  Of course I wanted the republicans to be right, but I wasn’t excited about their message.  I was excited about liberal ideals, and when that excitement came out of me, the bullying began.

        I was told that I was on a dangerous path.  I was called delusional, I was told that I couldn’t think for myself and that my husband had brainwashed me.  When I was pregnant with my first baby and debating the need for Plan B Contraceptives to be over-the-counter I was told that I was a baby killer.  I lost friends…a lot of friends.  I learned to be a closet democrat and keep my mouth shut.  Whenever it did come out that I was a democrat, the bullying would continue.  Only now, ten years later, am I confident enough to wear my liberalism and live outside the closet. 

        Leaving the tribe was hard, but living in one tribe when I once belonged to its enemy can be even harder.  Especially since most of my friends and family belong to that tribe.  I find value in conservatism and liberalism, and I feel that they could complement each other, but for the warfare.  Liberals call themselves progressives, but conservatives often call them radicals, godless, secular, unpatriotic.  Conservatives call themselves patriotic, defenders of America, good citizens, but liberals call them backward, gun-toting bigots.  This language doesn’t help. 

        Neither do the straw man arguments that are created in order to keep people riled up against the other side, thus preserving the solidarity of the tribe.  Straw man arguments are misrepresentations of an opponent’s argument.  For instance, I think most of us can agree that abortion is not something we want to be part of our society.  We just have different ways of wanting to solve the problem.  But if someone says they are pro-choice, a straw-man argument will misconstrue that to say “You don’t care about innocent babies and the sanctity of life.”  On the other side, pro-life can be misconstrued as not caring about the life, emotional strain, and choice of the mother.  This problem is aggravated by the people on the fringes who say ignorant things like a woman can’t get pregnant if it is a legitimate rape.

        I hear enough straw man arguments to think that what we have is two different sides building their own scarecrows.  These fake enemies are created in order to ensure fear of the other side.  A tribe needs an enemy in order to safeguard its survival.  An outside enemy creates nationalism and unity, and keeps people from looking at problems from within the tribe.   I am bothered by these fake enemies, because they obfuscate the truth and make it harder for liberals and conservatives to work together and understand each other. 

        Having jumped from one tribe to another, I quickly went from seeing Bill Clinton as the enemy to seeing George Bush as the enemy.  Now I try to search for the straw within the enemy.  That’s why it is hard to hear about President Obama, the cause of all our woes.  If the economy is bad, it is the result of this one man.  Twinkies go under because of the nature of capitalism, it’s Obama’s fault for killing capitalism.  Muslims are our enemy, well Obama must be a Muslim.  Obama can’t possibly have been born in the United States, because making him “other” than us makes him scary.  The problem is that President Obama is not the enemy.  Liberals, secularists, atheists, they’re not the enemy, and they are not going to cause the downfall of America.  The constitution is not hanging by a thread.  These are all fake enemies created to keep the tribe strong, and the fear of them keeps us from true communication and compromise.  That is the real enemy, the lack of communication and understanding that is keeping us from moving forward and reaching our potential as a nation.     

        I grew up thinking democrats were evil, but when I discovered liberalism, it was not the scary thing that I expected it to be.  The thing I love about having grown up conservative is that I enjoy the best of both worlds.  Conservative and liberal coexist peacefully inside me.  I have the progressive liberal side of me that looks forward and envisions greater things.  I also have the conservative side that keeps me grounded and helps me to look backward to evaluate the course and make sure that I am on safe ground.  How would things be different in politics if we could use our individual strengths to move forward together?  Tear down the straw men, cut out the tribal language, and look to each other’s strengths.  Let’s jump in a boat together.  Liberals can continue looking forward and conservatives can keep looking backward.  As we trust the vantage point of each other, working through our differences, we will have the best of both worlds.  We will know where we are going as well as where we have come from.