“Imagine a Church where your beloved grandmother is your stake president.”

Great interview by Joanna Brooks of Kate Kelly who launched ordainwomen.org.  I REALLY hope momentum builds on this issue.

On Tuesday, I ran into a female missionary on my campus.  Since I just left a course on “feminist international political economy,” I couldn’t help but give her an earful.  She was only 5 days into her mission, and looked rather homesick…age 19, chose to go on a mission before going to college, given that the Church recently lowered the age requirement for missionaries.  I asked her about women and the priesthood, and she told me that when she was a kid, she had huge issues with it — that it seemed unfair that only boys got the priesthood — but she went to her father who explained the whole gender symmetry thing to her, and now she “gets” it.  When I pushed her on this (e.g., men get the priesthood and parenthood, women only get parenthood), she said with a sad smile, “I know, I know…but it’s what we believe!”  I pushed her on the gay issue, letting her know I’m gay, linking it to female ordination (i.e., faiths that okay gay marriage also ordain women), and she could only sadly smile and reiterate, “I know it’s hard, but it’s what we believe.”  I wish I had the sense to point her to ordainwomen.org to let her know that one can be a faithful Mormon woman and still believe in female ordination, AND there’s a movement for it.  But perhaps one cannot be a missionary and assert that, similar to the gay issue (you can believe it’s not a sin, but can’t be a missionary unless you’re willing to teach that it is).

Ah well, I did mention Joanna Brooks’ name, whom did the missionary didn’t recognize.  Perhaps it’s not a good idea to over-associate Brooks since we don’t want another September Six on our hands.