On Monday, June 23, 2014 Mormon judges excommunicated women’s ordination activist Kate Kelly,” a story posted on the Internet by ThinkProgress.org said.
In the ThinkProgress story, a statement released by Kelly’s group, Ordain Women, is quoted as saying that “judges within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) sent Kelly an email yesterday informing her that she has been ‘excommunicated for conduct contrary to the laws and order of the LDS Church’.”
Kelly, the ThinkProgress story said, “is reportedly no longer allowed to ‘take the sacrament, hold a Church calling, give a talk in Church, offer a public prayer in behalf of the class or congregation in a Church meeting, or vote in the sustaining of Church officers’.”
The international human rights lawyer said she was crying and sobbing so much that she “couldn’t really read all the words” of her excommunication notice. Kelly later told NBC News: “I guess I’m a delusional optimist, because to the end I thought they would do the right thing.”
Kelly is reported to have “gathered women by the hundreds to march up to the doors of a meeting of the all-male priesthood and demand entry (they were denied). Still, when her efforts were combined with what appeared to be concessions on the part of the church — including finally allowing a women to lead a prayer at one of their conferences — some concluded that the church might be shifting its traditionally hardline stance against women in church leadership,” the ThinkProgress story went on.
The Mormon Church, of course, famously excluded black men from the priesthood throughout its long history as well, until 1976, when its leader announced that he had received “a revelation” from God that black males were henceforth to be considered eligible for be priests.
No such revelation has been made by God regarding women, however, judging from the pronouncements of Mormon Church leaders on this subject.
Mormon church teaching states that men and women have been assigned different, distinct but complementary roles in human life. Women are to support the men who are in power, because “the Lord has put it that way,” the church says.
So there you have it. God—who apparently has a penis—requires all of his priests in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and the Roman Catholic Church as well) to also have a penis. Priests, and even bishops, in the Episcopal Church may, however have vaginas (but only as of a few years ago, when God apparently changed His mind with regard to certain, but to all, of his Christian denominations.)
Female rabbis are allowed in the Jewish religion, and female ulamas are allowed in the Islamic tradition, and female ministers are allowed in most other Christian denominations, such as the Lutheran Church or the Presbyterian Church. The Baptist church is not too fond of the idea, and God appears to be very strict when it comes to both the Mormon and the Catholic Church.
So how does this work? Does God give different directions to different religious denominations? Or are some denominations violating the Law of God by allowing some of their leaders to have vaginas? Or is it the other way around? Are some denominations violating the Law of God by requiring all priests to have penises?
What do you think God wants with regard to all of this?
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