Today I am writing my first blog post on my first blog. Through tears. Through sorrow. Today a bishop in VA tried to tell me and everyone like me that we are not welcome in the Church that we love when he excommunicated my friend, Kate Kelly.

Today.

Today is the day that my emotions are raw, the pain is real. But today is the day where I also say, I do belong.

Last week Ally Isom told KUER’s Doug Fabrizio that Kate’s sin wasn’t that she asked questions. Her sin was that she asked questions on a website with a name that included an imperative. Ms. Isom told us that Relief Society was the proper place to discuss whether or not women could hold the Priesthood. Ms. Isom has reiterated time and time again that it wasn’t the “what” Kate asked but the “how.” I keep seeing people post that on the internets, “it’s not the what but the how.” Apparently apostasy is not what you’re actually trying to say but the grammar or tone you use in asking it.

How might women ask when all meeting requests have been ignored unless you’re a women who doesn’t have questions? How do you bring up your questions in Relief Society, of all places?

In far too many of my yesterdays I have gritted my teeth in silence. I have sat there saddened in Relief Societies, Sacrament meetings, Sunday Schools, family gatherings, parties with friends, school, everywhere else when things I don’t agree with are put on a pedestal. When people I love are degraded. When things are spoken as doctrine that aren’t. I have gritted my teeth when people I love are judged. I have gritted my teeth in silence not wanting to cause a commotion. I have “kept sweet.”

I will no longer be silent. I will speak up today. I will speak up every Sunday.



Kate’s bishop told her to stop trying to secure a following, which shows how little he understands Mormon Feminists. Mormon Democrats. Mormon Liberals. Mormons in general. We do not “follow” anyone. Even with the “true blue mormons,” as people on the internets like to say, there is only one person, ultimately. That one person we are trying to follow is our Savior, Jesus Christ who loved and tolerated everyone. He didn’t just love everyone with words. He was there. With the sinners. Spending time with them. Loving them.

I will no longer be silent. I belong here. You belong here. We do not have to be perfect or believe perfectly to be here. We do not have to serve perfectly. We do not have to act perfectly or live perfectly. We belong here because we are human. Because we are imperfect. Same as you. None of us are perfect. We are all trying, the best that we can. You are trying the best that you can.

Why are we grieving, you ask us? These last two weeks, we have felt like we too are on trial. We and everyone else who thinks like us. We have felt rejected. We have been told that we are not worthy. That we do not belong. All the times that Mormon women have asked to meet Church leaders or even just the PR department, and then been rebuffed, we too have felt rebuffed. Ignored.

But today in my grief I will no longer be silent. Today, I will scream it from the rooftops if I have to: I do belong here.

I say it again, I do belong here. So do the other Democrats. The Republicans. The Greens. The tea partiers. The coffee partiers. The gays. The straights. The “true blue mormons.” The doubters. The first world. The third world. The people of color. The caucasians. The descendants of Mormon Pioneers. The modern pioneers. The intellectuals. The uneducated. Those with testimonies and doubts. Those who ask without fear. Those who wait for answers from their leaders. The men. The women. The children. The feminists. The working moms. The stay-at-home moms. The single parents. The childless. The single. The married. The divorced. The perfect. The imperfect. The tattooed. The starving. The fed. The dog lovers. The cat lovers. The priesthood holders. The priesthood-less. The drinkers. The teetotalers. The addicts. The law abiders. The felons. The believers in “traditional” marriage. The believers in marriage equality. The homeschoolers. The public schoolers. The women who show their shoulders. The women who cover them. I belong here when my hair is purple. I belong here when my hair is blonde.

We all belong in Christ’s church. We are all part of the body of Christ. And even though a bishop in VA says otherwise, so does Kate Kelly. She belongs here too.

Some of you don’t want us. You suggest we should leave. You might be saying, “serves her right!” You call this boundary control. You wonder why anyone stays who asks questions, who doesn’t believe as perfectly or live as perfectly as you do. You wonder why people go on missions when they don’t believe absolutely or who know that they’re gay. Guess what, you aren’t perfect either. None of us are. It isn’t just believers who wonder why we stay. Nonbelievers ask me why I and all the others like me stay. Why do we hope? Why do we stay when we can be cast out, when we can be shut out from the Temple, when we are told that we can’t speak publicly or pray publicly?

Why are we here? Because here, we are. We stay. We are here because Christ wants us here. Today and yesterday and tomorrow. When leaders like Pres. Uchdorf and Chieko Okazaki tell us that we belong here, in our doubts, in our questions, in our diversity, in our imperfections, in our hopes, I believed them. I still believe them. I know that Christ wants us here, he wants you here. He wants you even if you don’t believe in him. Some leaders tell us that there isn’t room for the “feminists, intellectuals, and gays.” Far more tell us that we belong. Christ tells that we belong, that there is room for us here. Heavenly Father wants you. Yes, Heavenly Mother wants you too. We are here. We are here and we are staying. Excommunicate us all, call us all apostates, but we are staying.

Do you want to make us feel welcome? Do you want to do something about the SEVENTY PERCENT of those worldwide 15,000,000 Latter-day Saints who aren’t active? Think about that. The vast majority of people who are baptized members of this Church aren’t coming. Why aren’t they coming?

Let that seventy percent feel like they belong here, and they too will stay. They too will come on Sunday, even if, or especially if, they don’t believe. Modesty is beautiful but stop with the modesty shaming. Fidelity is beautiful but stop with the shaming when we aren’t. Don’t tell a sexually abused woman that it’s her fault. Don’t tell the raped girl that her clothing was asking for it. Don’t think your children will remain celibate if you never talk about sex. Don’t tell the gay man to marry the gay out of him. Don’t tell the lesbian that the only option for her is eternal singleness. Don’t tell those of us hoping for change that “God never changes, that the doctrine never changes, only policy changes.”

And there we agree with you. So many of us who hope for change believe the same thing. That God doesn’t change, that policies change when we’re willing to hear the message that’s been yelled from the rooftops. That message: God is “no respecter of persons,” all are “created equal before God,” and “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” We who hope, don’t call us apostate or unbelievers. “How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?” We know that you who disagree with us hope too. Love each other, in our hopes, even when they are different from each other.

Put primacy on examples of action and not just examples of dress, or hair color, or number of piercings. Embrace the woman who wears pants to Church. Embrace the women who don’t even have shoes, let alone dresses. Try to understand the gay mormon. Try to understand the divorced mormon. Try to understand the Mormon Feminist. The Mormon un-feminist. Try to understand the Mormon who doesn’t even believe in God, but still calls themselves Mormon. Try to understand the person who’s cried in their closet over weirdness in our Church’s early history. Walk a mile in our shoes. Walk with us. Chances are, you’ve been there too.

Stop talking about how The World says this, or encourages that. Don’t say The World does this, thinks this, but we who are the true believers know that this is really the way to think or be or act. Yes there is good and evil. Right and wrong. But, scape-goating everything you disagree with as The World is offensive. That language is why so many of that seventy percent don’t come. Our families are out there in The World. Your families are out there in The World. Your friends are there. My friends are there. Mother Theresa is out there in The World. Gandhi is out there in The World. Mohammed is out there in The World. Christ was out there, In. The. World. The World is you and me. It is all of our brothers and sisters. It is not the other, it is all of us.

So do you want us here? Do you want to make us feel welcome? First, mourn with us. Comfort us. Cry with us today, this week, this year, this decade. Hurt for this gospel today. When you go to church this Sunday, don’t talk about us like we’re sinners. Don’t tell us that our beliefs our wrong, that we understand the doctrine incorrectly. That calling Kate Kelly an apostate and excommunicating her proves your rightness and our wrongness. Talk about your love for everyone. Show us your love. When you go to church this Sunday, look for the person who looks differently from you or thinks differently from you or acts differently from you, and walk with them. Sit with them. Invite Kate Kelly and everyone else rejected today to Church headquarters and speak with them. Listen to them. Listen to us when we say, why did it take until 2013 for a woman to pray in General Conference? Why do we hear from only a handful of women at General Conference? Why do so many of the women who do speak sound like they’re talking to children? Why can’t women hold non-priesthood financial callings.

It’s ok to ask why. And it’s ok to ask why in places other than Relief Society.

If you can’t find anyone who thinks, looks, or acts differently from you at Church on Sunday, then reach out to us. Have conversations in your ward or branch about how you can make it a place where those seventy percent want to come. Have a conversation about making our wards and branches places where the billions of our brothers and sisters who aren’t even part of that 15,000,000 in the first place, want to come and worship.

We are the seventy percent. You are the seventy percent. Today we are here, and today we are staying with our hopes, with our questions, with our sorrow.