I stayed up really late trying to find out what would happen to Kate Kelly, and now we’re told that a decision will come Monday or Tuesday. Hmmm, I need a humor break. So here are some of Robert Kirby’s words from the Salt Lake Tribune.
The outcome of Sunday’s “court o’ love” is a foregone conclusion for many people. Some I’ve talked to seem to think Kate will have her membership torn from her as a way of putting her in her place.
Others insist that she should have seen it coming and mended her heretical ways before being torn from the bosom of the savior for her own good.
Whatever happens will be interesting for Mormons, but you know what would be most interesting of all? If Kate came out of the hearing with a promotion instead — not to the lowly Aaronic priesthood reserved for boys but to the full-bore Melchizedek Priesthood currently invested in older men, including geezers such as me.
What if instead of being cast out, Kate was called to serve where no woman has served before — as a bishop of an LDS ward?
That would certainly shake things up. We’ve been patriarchal for so long that most of us wouldn’t know what to do if our congregational leadership balance suddenly shifted to the female side.
I’d know what to do. If the bishop in the Rosecrest First Ward suddenly didn’t have a Y chromosome, I’d do whatever she told me, that’s what. I’m far more used to taking orders from women.
My mother is a woman. So is my wife. My editor is the second toughest woman in the entire world. I only have daughters and most of my grandchildren are female.
Being bossed around by men is easier to cope with for the simple fact that I understand the way other men think. Also, I’m allergic to male authority.
For example, with a male bishop there’s always that mutually understood fundamental gospel premise that if he oversteps his authority, I just might punch him in the face.
I haven’t done that yet. The highest up the priesthood chain of command I’ve ever slugged was a first counselor in another ward’s elders’ quorum presidency. But it was basketball and he swung first.
It’s less socially acceptable — whether in church or out — to go around punching women, including crazy mean bossy ones. There’s a certain amount of deference afforded women even when they’re exercising unrighteous dominion.
If my LDS bishop was a woman, I’d end up doing more volunteer welfare assignments, skipping church less and probably even working in the Primary. And if she wasn’t happy with the job I did, I could end up attending church in the custodial closet.
On the bright side, with a female bishop I might be — entirely against my will — forced to improve my odds of not going to hell. Or at least not the deepest part where Hitler and Mr. Rogers are.
Personally I’m all for women getting ordained. Why not? As a rule they’re kinder, gentler and more loving than men. Maybe room should be made for them.
They would have to get their own levels of priesthood authority, though. Toward that end I’ll support anything but the Menopausidik Priesthood.
Mormon Heretic 
What if she first had enough real interest in the outcome to actually show up?
Why didn’t you offer to pay the airfare from SLC to Virginia so she could attend in person?
She balked at Skype as well. She had a death wish and ran out of rope.
The rules of skype were that she wasn’t allowed to have anyone in the room with her to defend her either. This disciplinary council seems like a kangaroo court, and isn’t what I would call due process by any stretch of the imagination. You and I obviously disagree on the interpretation of events.
I saw this on Facebook, and thought it was worthy of sharing.
1885: LDS Church publicly condemns and releases Bishop John Sharp for renouncing polygamy.
1890: LDS Church renounces polygamy.
1942: LDS Church excommunicates Helmuth Huebner, who had been arrested for opposing Hitler and was awaiting execution.
1946: Hübener is posthumously reinstated with the note, “excommunicated by mistake.”
1977: LDS Church excommunicates Byron Merchant and Douglas A. Wallace for opposing LDS ban on Blacks receiving the priesthood.
1978: LDS discontinues ban on Blacks receiving the priesthood.
Does a feminist attorney need another one in the room? Should everyone including the Bishopric have a cast of thousands behind them? Who else has a right to be there? She basically plead guilty by opting out of the meeting face to face. SHE DIDN’T WANT TO ATTEND; SHE SAID SO.
Good One: 3 coincidences over the course of a century.
Those 3 coincidences resulted in the last 2 revelations we have received as a church, but I guess revelations post-Joseph Smith are no big deal…..
Robinobishop, why is your blog private? Scared to have another point of view ruin your little land of utopia? Or do you (like the SCMC) have something to hide?
LDS Church hierarchy doesn’t coordinate excommunications….It’s just another really strange coincidence that Elder Whitney Clayton’s fingerprints are all over these excommunications. See http://www.nearingkolob.com/elder-l-whitney-clayton-involved-church-discipline/
I’m very sad for Kate, but this was pretty funny.
http://mormonchildbride.blogspot.com/2014/06/mean-girls.html#comment-form
Has Kate Kelly ever demanded that men be allowed to serve as Presidents of the Relief Society? Fair is fair.
While I appreciate the sudden burst in activity, I am just curious where all the sarcastic trolls have come from? I remind all that I wrote on my About page, “This blog will hopefully be a thoughtful and respectful forum.” Not a single comment here is what I would call thoughtful, but Mark, go ahead and start the “Relief Society Men” website. I checked GoDaddy, and reliefsocietymen.com (as well as .org) is available. I say Go For it! Get that equality so long denied you!
I saw this on Facebook.
“The sanctimonious are right: Jesus doesn’t accept everyone and everything. Most particularly, Jesus doesn’t accept those who would misuse religion as an excuse for sanctimony. None receives greater condemnation from him…. It seems to me that this is because sanctimony desecrates religion itself, making the greatest evil of that which should be greatest good, using the unparalleled social power of religion against each other instead of for each other.”
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN & AMEN!
In the Book of Mormon, Jesus describes the spirit that sets people against one another as the devil (3 Ne. 11:29-30). In the same sermon he describes the mutually supportive relationship that exists within the Godhead, and into which the Gospel invites us through baptism in the name of the Godhead: a relationship in which each is fundamentally _for_ the other, rather than against (3 Ne. 11:25-27, 31-36). _This_ is the relationship we are to build with the Godhead and with one another. To use the Gospel as a reason to be against others–to feel, speak, or act antagonistically toward them–is to desecrate it.
http://lincoln.metacannon.net/2014/06/sanctimony-desecrates-excommunication.html
I saw this on Facebook as well.
Regardless of your feelings towards Ms. Kelly, the Ordain Women movement, or the LDS Church, I think today is a day where we as fellow Mormons should mourn and sorrow that one of our own has been lost. To quote Neylan McBaine on the date that the news of Kelly’s disciplinary court was made public, “Perhaps the realization that Kate is a woman and a sister who is truly sorrowing now will give each of us pause before we make that insensitive comment or refer to her in impersonal, derogatory terms. My hope is that today’s news will allow us to put aside our differences, even briefly, and come together as brothers and sisters.”