Every once in a while when I find myself feeling unreasonably optimistic about society, I force myself to listen to conservative talk radio to balance things out. The other day I was indulging myself in this unique form of psychotherapy by listening to conservatives call in and rail against the horrors of the Affordable Care Act when several things became quite evident. These people clearly had an ax to grind and didn’t have a clue as to what they were complaining about.  Despite their obvious passion they did not have an understanding of Obamacare and their criticism came across as ignorant.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come under fire for many things over the years, including their very public opposition to Proposition 8 in which criticism was warranted because it was an example of their doctrine bleeding over into the public arena. The LDS church also received justifiable criticism for failing to allow African-Americans to hold the priesthood until 1978, and to a lesser extent criticism for the practice of polygamy.
However, the recent criticism directed towards the church for not allowing women to hold the priesthood is completely unwarranted and an example of people simply not understanding what they are criticizing. There was a significant amount of media coverage this past weekend during the LDS General Conference as a group called “Ordain Women” tried unsuccessfully to gain entrance to the male-only priesthood session of General Conference.
The group, which is composed of LDS women who want the church to support gender equality, has been aggressively petitioning the LDS church to change their stance on the male-only priesthood — their demands to attend the priesthood session was part of that effort.  While their collective heart may be in the right place, their efforts and the subsequent media coverage is misguided for several reasons.
For one thing, any attempt to attend priesthood Conference when it isn’t mandated is puzzling because it’s basically two hours of men being scolded for not living up to some pretty lofty standards — it’s not exactly happy hour at Hooter’s. For another thing, all the talks are available online and through various church magazines for any women wanting to see what’s going on behind closed doors. But clearly the issue at the heart of the demonstration is the fact that the LDS church does not allow women to hold the priesthood, and the criticism of this policy does not make sense.
The reason women do not hold the priesthood was explained by former president of the LDS church Gordon B. Hinckley when he said, “Women do not hold the priesthood because [God] has put it that way. It is part of His program … Men hold the priesthood offices of the Church. But women have a tremendous place in this Church … The man neither walks ahead of wife nor behind his wife but at her side. They are co-equals in this life in a great enterprise.”
This essentially explains that the LDS church views men and woman as equal but with different roles within the principles of their beliefs. This is why the demands of “Ordain Women” do not make sense. If these women claim to subscribe to the LDS faith, they would believe that God is at the head of the church, so rather then protesting and petitioning church leaders it would make more sense to pray for change. Otherwise their actions seem more like a political statement and come across as divisive, because most LDS women do not see this as a issue.
Their actions demean the role of women in the LDS faith by suggesting that women do not have equal importance in the church which, diminishes the importance the LDS faith places on family and raising children. There are many LDS households where it’s the woman who rules the roost with an iron fist and the man is little more than a pack mule bringing in the goods. Just because modern society may view the idea of a woman running the household and raising children as antiquated doesn’t make it so.
The scrutiny being heaped upon the LDS church from the media and other outside observers is also not warranted because this is not the same type of issue as Proposition 8, which affected people who weren’t part of the LDS faith. Rather, this is a case of disproportionate sliver of women within the LDS faith who are dissatisfied with a doctrine that dates back to ancient biblical times. This is really more of an internal issue that is being picked apart and dissected by people who seem just as clueless and uninformed as the deluge of confused conservatives that call in to radio shows to vent about a health care plan that they don’t understand.