Requests To Meet With Local Leaders
During the weeks preceding and following the recent Ordain Women action, several Mormon feminists, including me, were contacted by our stake presidents or bishops. These local leaders requested meetings with us to discuss our concerns about male-only priesthood. To my knowledge, most of these meetings resulted in good conversations. I hope this is an indication that the Church intends to honor the statement its spokesperson made at the event, “These are our sisters and we want them among us.”
I said both good and bad though actually I’m talking about the same experience because I feel ambivalent. Maybe it is just the sobbing jag that preceded what turned out to be fairly benign. I thought I was going to a regular calling-related meeting but fortunately the Young Women President felt she should call me and tell me the other agenda item (me) in advance because she felt it would be unfair and wrong to spring something on me. I am grateful to her, but I still cried and worried and felt like garbage. So while the meeting was okay and he was kind and genuinely interested, the summons felt like an executioner’s call.
I have never been called in, but I have asked to meet with bishops about feminist concerns. They’ve always gone well, but I should note that I don’t make appointments with bishops that I don’t think will take my ideas well.