Posted by Christy on Feb 28, 2016 in Female, Profile |

My name is Megan. I became a Mormon when I was nine years old. My family doesn’t have a drop of Mormon pioneer blood, we’ve been in Michigan for generations. Thanks to a pair of missionaries in the 1960’s, the Gospel was filtered down until it hit me, hard, at a Sunday service in a small ward in Michigan. I knew then that it was true, just as I know it today. I told my mother that Sunday that I wanted to be baptized. I’ve never regretted that decision.

I’ve grown and matured since that day. I went to college in Ann Arbor, received my endowments in Detroit, served a mission in South Texas, and attended law school in Lansing, my home town. I’ve had successes and failures and my life has not turned out the way I thought it would, but it’s a good life, regardless. All through the ups and downs I have never doubted the truthfulness of two things: the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the inherent equality of all human beings. I was taught, all throughout childhood and my youth, that God was not a respecter of persons, that women and men were equal. That teaching continues to be true to this day.

I can now see everything I couldn’t as a child, the unspoken exclusions, the way that sisters are shuffled out of meetings and councils, unconsciously pushed to the sidelines and silenced. It’s not malicious, it’s simply a result: women don’t hold the priesthood so they don’t speak with authority so they’re words don’t hold as much weight. The Church is structured on lines of authority, Bishop to Stake President to Area Authority and up and up and up, leaving women on the sidelines with no definitive way to make our voices heard. We are the auxiliary, adjacent to the Church’s power structure and thus easily ignored.

I support the Ordain Women movement because we need to yell to be heard and our voices are stronger together. Only with ordination to the priesthood can women have true equality in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We deserve an equal say in the policies and practices that guide our church and our daily lives. Lip-service isn’t enough. Action is required.

The restored Gospel is the bedrock of my soul. I’ve been through doubt and despair and I know who I am. My relationship with my God is solid and sure. I am a feminist. I am a Mormon. These facts should not be in opposition, they should be complementary, a given. We are all children of a loving God who loves us equally. Now it’s time for God’s Church to do the same. I believe women should be ordained.