I want to begin today by issuing a disclaimer. All my friends want me to be sure to say that I don't speak for them. When I speak anywhere and Mormons free already want me to tell you that I don't speak for them either. They're all worried. I'm going to say something a day and I'm likely to that they don't want to have a part of so I'm not speaking today as present for Mormons for your and I'm not speaking as a representative of any more men or women are excommunicated Mormon men or women and it's possible that I might not even represent myself. Well ik's make I can usually do that also, so we'll just have to see what results. I seen to myself to be an unlikely candidate to be a heretic. Every morning I wake up and have to remind myself that I am one and I think that the cameraman in Boise pretty pretty well last week when he said as he was I was repairing on some TV show in Boise and at the end he said he came up to me and said, you know, you're dissing mom. I didn't know if that was good or bad but that's sort of how I feel, you know, and there are lots of just moms out there who because of the attitudes of churches are going to start waking up in the morning and finding themselves Heretics. You are you may be able to know how I became one just in case you think that it may be happening to you or someone. You know, how it happened to me and I when I speak you have to realize that I don't regard the Mormon church has At having a corner on chauvinism or on sexism. I think they did pretty well pervades Western religions. And of course, he's going to rant and We Know It pervade Middle Eastern religions and maybe all religions on the face of the Earth. So, please don't take what I say as any kind of condemnation solely of the Mormon Church. They simply are my represent my sample, you know, my my example because they're the ones that I deal with that you got the same problems. I'm sure. Will when I've lived overseas a lot of my life are my married life that is and lived a long time in Africa and the demolation Korea and Samoa and you're the one who's moving didn't big in those countries and I and I just really didn't even know. Well, I knew it was going on but I didn't know exactly what it was and I knew one thing I did know and that was it. I didn't need it cuz I was having a great time and everything was Splendid. And so when I came and we come home. Oakley and I'd always be so disoriented are we stopping every all the time? I was here was suffering from culture shock, you know, I couldn't get used to this place again until I really didn't get involved in much of anything and I've never been political near the innocent causes. I was not for almost in the Civil Rights Movement, which is an embarrassment to me today. So we've been back in the United States in Virginia about 3 years. I was beginning to get accustomed to the United States and then beginning to start to think about Community here. I was a middle-aged woman and I have not done anything for my community and I just been a mom and and taught College part-time. I taught it here, you know before I was a mom and in the English Department, I let them I was a graduate assistant for a couple of years. And one day I went to church I go to church every Sunday, by the way, that's an important thing to know. And I love going to church and the church has always been the very basis of my life and giving me a lot of joy and I was at church this particular day. And then now so that even it have a meeting in which one of the local leaders of the church who was male of course was going to come and tell us why the church with opposing Equal Rights Amendment ain't no different name Equal Rights Amendment strike me as being an awfully good name for an amendment. And I knew I'd heard about that somewhere, but I didn't know what it was. Exactly and I figured that I ought to come in and listen to that official explain to me why an amendment called Equal Rights Amendment was an evil thing at the church to fight again. So my husband and I went to that meeting. And we heard the Equal Rights Amendment read for the first time in our lives. And those of you who have have read that and I've heard it read know that it's beautiful and simple and true and I just what I thought when I heard it, you know, the church had always taught me correct principles and it taught me how to NOLA correct principle when I heard one and I heard that and I said equality under the law is the correct principal. And I also knew about the law of parsimony. I knew that the simple statement is more often wifey to be closer to the truth and that complicated statement and I also have been taught in the Mormon church that The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. And beautiful and I'm part of his beauty beauty is a Simplicity. Well here, you know, we have the opponents now saying Equal Rights Amendment is too simple and therefore deceptive and all of them are Christian people who are going around saying when the way that reasons that we know the Gospel of Jesus Christ the truth because it's so simple. I mean, I don't understand how they can have both things at once. But when I heard it, I thought this is a part of the sort of thing that Jesus taught. Well, then the man read the statement of the church against it's official policy against Equal Rights Amendment. And if he read that the women's movement fail on me right out of the blue. I had what I've been teaching my students in Minnesota and other colleges about I had an epiphany. I suddenly knew what the woman who that was all about and it just nearly killed me because I got it all at once and in the middle of that meeting and I know that nobody in my congregation will ever forget me meeting because I had a minor nervous breakdown that maybe it was more like made right there in front of everybody. I could not believe But I was hearing and that letter seems innocuous enough. It just says that women are exalted persons and that the man loved us a lot and they want the best for us and they've always held it in highest regard and I just don't know why but I suddenly knew what that meant. Song the church made me a feminist. And then that was in April 1978. You see what a baby feminist I am. I not embarrassed to speak to people in the audience. Like you probably been in there for years and I have scarcely beginning and you can probably to be talking to me telling me about things that that was in April and November. I became a political activist and the church did that also what they did was they organized in Virginia than an mattified State and they at the church organized and Auntie are a Coalition in Virginia and they organized it under the direction of the headquarters in Salt Lake Gordon B. Hinckley was one of the 12 apostles told the regional representative who is the highest local church authority to organize the women in the church against their equal right? Obviously didn't say it like that, but that's that's what he told him to do. And so I went to that meeting and made a tape recording of it in which this man who is the religious leader of 17,000 Mormons in Virginia. All the women told my sisters who might have left all my life and still do regardless of them. Iran differences I was one of them, you know for a very long time and it's hard to get over feeling like one of them and I was very angry when I heard this man. Tell them and I have this statement on tape. I heard him say to them. Don't tell anyone that the men have organised you. Tell people that you have organized yourself. And I said to myself what kind of a church tells people to deceive. And then he also said some place in there are some and maybe it wasn't the same man informed these women that they were not to let on that. They were Mormons when they went to the legislature or that they were organized they were to say that they were private citizens and they didn't explain to the women why they asked me to do this, but I could tell who I am and as I watched it function, I knew why and that was because when those women went and drugs were bused by the church down to Richmond to the legislature by the thousands it look like an enormous Grassroots movement had just Arisen in Virginia and legislators were saying gone. This must represent the Virginians point of view. In fact those women didn't even represent the anti point of view. They didn't know what era was or what it wasn't the issue wasn't the Equal Rights Amendment. They only represented Mormons and they and whose view is the views of the people at the Mormons who fight the Equal Rights Amendment. The bottom line is when you talk to them, do you believe that the president of the church is a prophet of God? If you do, then you will fight against the Equal Rights Amendment that of course is not true. But still they are there because they are following the prophet. That's why they're they're not because they have come to an anti you are a position on their own steamer had a conscious of insect if the president of the church where to change his mind tomorrow about 3 million Mormons would change your mind tomorrow and that tells you about their personal consciences and what what What is sacrifice in personal conscience they have made and how serious that is. There is a moral crisis in that church. That is just of enormous proportions and I see it best there. But I hear from other women and other churches that they are having an equally serious. crisis in there and so now the church it made me a politically active feminist. I do then what we decided we decided that we were proponents of equal rights. We wanted to see it ratified and we called ourselves Mormons for y'all ready because we wanted to show that the church wasn't monolithic that not all Mormons were supposed it to equal rights for women are the Equal Rights Amendment. And we also wanted to let the proponents in other states know that there was a group like us and that we and if they had Mormon problems as many and Most states have and our had that they knew it to get in touch with us. We had to be had to say what we were a lot of people criticize that's for using that name and that's why I'm being defensive about it is that we we seem to need to politically where was I? I got off on that tangent. Shall we do? Well, we wanted to we want to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. We thought and we know that we can make it a really unique contribution. And that is that we can tell if opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment get ratified State want the church is doing there because in Moulton ratified States, they are organized as they are in Virginia underground and it's not fair to fight an invisible and to me it's not fair for a church for any church to go into the political Arena head over heels and then not to be accountable for it and then to hide behind his ecclesiastical skirts and Sable don't say anything about us or you'll be religious bigots when they chose politics and so we meet them in the political Arena where they are fighting our equal rights and we go about and tell people in those States what the name of the more of an organization is in their state what they're doing and we also tell them what they can do against And there are things you can do, you know, the Mormons are very family-oriented. They think perhaps they invented the family. I at least at least at least they see themselves as the last Defenders of the family on the face of the globe and I we tell those proponents. We asked him if there anybody in that audience, when were there all proponents in Equal Rights Amendment except some Mormons who come to hate me a lot and just didn't hate me. Everybody has family's I mean even atheists have families. I just hate to say that is true. And everybody M and people love their families and their children their husbands and wives and we mustn't let one group The far-right in the new riding is country become that we can't let them all in the family. You know, we do have the family and we care about our families and we're working for the Equal Rights Amendment because of our families and this is the first thing we have to make clear to them. The second thing is that they must fight the church On its on a political basis they have to login pressure and all those things cuz that's what that's what we do. And that's why I was asking indicated and regardless of what the church says. I was in those trials and I know that what I have done it opposed the church politically, but you see people in the church are not able to separate politics and religion because they believe the president of the church as I have said is a prophet of God like Moses or Abraham and they believe that he has heard from God on the matter of the ER and God has said no and a minute. And the minute they think something like that politics and religion go just like this. I mean, they can't get them unglued their inexplicably connected in their minds and I had to get them disconnected. I had to be able to see that the church has some policies which are not Revelation which God has very little to do with a man had a great deal to do with and that we should be able to have political freedom in any church. We should be able to be liberal politicians in in a church and it shouldn't get to be that You can't be a member of the church and less you are a John Bircher or unless you are very right-wing or something wrong with the church. That forces is liberal people out. And I know this that out of the Mormon church every day walk some of its very best members quietly just will not and cannot anymore be comfortable there because it becomes that the political organization and so very very conservative. That that is a moral crisis, isn't it? What about religions where you can't go to to worship over you have two for you go and everything is all confused where where they put them at present in my ward and the congregation. One night. I go to a meeting against the era in the very Chapel for the next day. I come in and take communion take the sacrament. If I can't tell you what that does to you spiritually to go in that very room where you do your worshipping here people tell lies about the Equal Rights Amendment the night before it's just impossible. It's such an invasion of personal freedom and Mormon say to me I get letters everyday that say I am I'm probably free to make a choice about the Equal Rights Amendment is not invading my personal freedom. I just chosen to go with it better. I know that there is not complete freedom to be any reason for going to church and I don't care what the church authorities say. It is not acceptable. And it's the suspect position now, Hawaii. What what is up here? Why are churches? Why is this report? I said is sort of a typical example what's going on? Well patriarchy is what's going on, obviously. And at the last moment bre meeting one of the Mormons fear I said if you say anything about patriarchy be sure that you say this is not from Mormons priyare. So I'm just going to say that again so I won't be any question in anyone's mind and I speak only for myself. You know that historians and anthropologists stated that their used there was before written history of golden age of matriarchy, maybe just golden for women. I'm beginning to think that's possible. It was anything like patriarchy anyway. so we don't want that back again either but that it was there and I suppose it's at that time as the man went out to peel or vegetables out by the kitchen doors in the alleys and And throughout their dishwater there were some political activist men whose Consciousness have been a little raised and he went down and get a diesel groups of house has been together in and there was a patriarchal Revolution. And that happened about four thousand years ago Earth are so you know that it's a very rough estimate. Maybe it wasn't quite that long ago. It was still happening in Old Testament times as you can plainly see by the women being wiped out constantly in the Old Testament. They go in and wipe out all the goddess shrines and all the women's religions and stuff. So haven't been I haven't been all that long ago that we're ready. We are obviously witnessing the next. Sexual Revolution where in it all of us right now and although I'm not an adherent to that view of history that said that everything continually gets better and better and better and better, you know, we can see it. That's not true. Still I think that did we made some Evolution we try to make your at matriarchy the man thought that was this rotten. We tried patriarchy and the women think that's just rotten and so now we're saying What about equality? And that strikes everybody except the man who obviously it's up some of them and some of them obviously they believe in that but they just don't want it to happen a lot, you know. But they know it's a good concept and then they'll come around. I think if they can be sure that women don't mean to get matriarchy bag here other than they just have to be the balance of power is very tricky and women wants head. Is he the man of now got it so they just want to make sure that we means that we'll divvy up evenly maybe before they'll come around bed. Anyway, so obviously a great principal equality is why are some of the new right and the right-wing conservative churches oppose the Equal Rights Amendment will because it says let's have equality under the law which means in essence. Let's have equality. And they know that their church is based their structure is based on the principle that patriarchy is the way it has to be is God's way. And it's meant to be that way and they fear will is Frederick Douglass said once you remember he said power concedes nothing without a struggle while the matter and power and Power in the churches. And that's that really is the Bastion of power is in the churches. And it will be the last to move that's why we don't, that's why at least I don't confront the church directly or didn't them till they confronted me directly and because I never hoped to reformat your it is so deep. And so basic to religion that men are Supreme that there is no fighting it head-on and makes you want to be killed or run Dino Run Over by a truck there. It has to happen in society first and then churches have to see that people now have accepted it as a correct and workable principal and they will have to come around if they want to exist at the same way to civil rights caused the Mormon Church the Civil Rights Movement cause a Mormon church. Find me to give blacks the preset black man that is hasten to add. Well, obviously there are a lot of women. Who are doubting the supremacy of men? Not that we don't still like to be like him better. I think we don't fear them anymore and their assembly that who are sure that it's dead wrong that they're Supreme. And so what was bound to happen is that we began to think that maybe the idea that a male God is supreme is also not acceptable. So we began to think that perhaps there are female deities and the Mormon Church teaches that we have a mother in heaven when I mentioned this in my trial the man nearly died. Because it's doctrinal and they don't know how to fight that that date. They said they said to me well, that's right. We do have them but we don't mention her. And I said, how about pray to her? Oh my goodness, you know you couldn't like they've been they've gone to fall on their swords at the very thought well. This is going to have a great impact on churches either. They're going to have to be some representation in the heavens for women or women are just going to continue to walk out of the churches. And I know that they are because if they're walking out of the Mormon church, and I get letters by the hundreds that tell me they are doing so. The Mormon church has enormous hold on people named Norma's hold. I didn't believe me. I can testify to that. And if they're walking out of the Mormon Church by the droves, they're at they're stampeding out of the other churches. Which means that if churches really are going to keep women and you and use their talents and be and have any kind of bass in society. They are going to have to re-examine the whole thing. They're going to have to re-examine God and Adam and Eve and you know, they're going to start from beginning and end. Of course, this is already happening as all of you know, we are finding that perhaps we haven't been told the story straight and that's not surprising. You know, somebody that's not a surprise. He would have told those men would have given them power either probably so we're not surprised that have been a lot of Erasure speaking of historical erasers somebody or something. I read just recently. Tell me how this works, but it has certainly worked in religious books in the Bible in and then all others this process called historical racer and she gave the example. Is it right now in United States are is it a history book written for high school's it's widely used in in it. It says Pierre Curie discovered radium with the help of his lab assistant Murray. That's now she said that really exist by now. He says now in 20 years, they won't mention his lab assistant. And she said we may be are your children may be the last generation who know about Marie Curie and that's the way history has been written. And so that's also the way the Bible has been written because that's history. And that's also what we know about God which is just half. and soul We are seeing a religious and spiritual Revolution and women are crying out to the churches to let them stay and have it at church. Let me have my prices at church and helped me and move with me and the churches are saying for the most part now, there are some that are trying very hard to move. But for the most part they are saying excommunication banishment silence squelch. This is not really a very clever way to handle the problem. because I think that they need to capitalize upon the fact that there are people like Sonya Johnson who wants to belong to that church and is far better for me to want to ban for me not to want to And that I'm better in it, then I am out of it and if they make that mistake with me and others they are making a mistake from which they cannot recover. I don't mean that I'm on that Splendid person, but I am a worthy human being and I care about that church. And it's a mistake to do this and it's happening to women all the time every day and a lot of men too. Well, I'm going to stop because I want you to be able to ask me some questions if you want and I hope it that you won't go if there Mormons are you won't go for the juggler. That's all right. I don't want to read one thing from a Mormon woman. She wrote me a letter before before all this started happening to me. And here's what she says and this gives you an idea of a there. Are there other Mormon women like me. They just didn't happen. Did the accident happen to fall on them so publicly she said I have been badly disillusioned by this. Holy are a mess in the church. I suppose you have two while yeah, she could say that. And your old here's where I got my FIT Frederick Douglass go. It seems Frederick Douglass was right when he said power concedes nothing without a struggle. It's too bad isn't it in the end though the men of this nation and this church may wish they had handed us equality without a struggle. The struggle is making women strong. We will win our rights and when we have one, then we will have learned from the struggle what we could have learned. No other way. We will have learned for ourselves about power.