It’s no secret the church has a huge PR problem when it comes to women’s roles in the LDS church. Anyone who thinks the church doesn’t have a woman problem, needs only to read hundreds of national news articles, blog posts and podcasts or just follow the various LDS women’s movements that have popped up to try and defend the contrary. You only need to see how vigorously someone has to defend an argument to show why that argument needs to be made in the first place. If LDS women were equal, they wouldn’t have to keep telling us we are. We would just be.

Here’s the thing – for a church that is actively trying to sell a story to the world about how women are valued, they sure have a funny way of showing it. The stories are swelling of active LDS women receiving church discipline in various forms, usually having their temple recommends revoked by their local leaders for supporting various Mormon Feminist causes. These stories are growing every single Sunday. I read about three more today in our community. This makes the number I know of personally, over ten human beings. The count is growing higher and higher. These are not women who have a public persona like Kate Kelly. These are women who have questions, who are punished for Facebook statuses, who feel undervalued in their spiritual community. And their community reacts by punishing them and trying to silence them with fear and shame.

Religion isn’t a weapon. Why is the church allowing leaders to use it as one?

If you want to know how much the church values women, try being a woman who asks for equal rights and see how you are treated. The actions are speaking far louder than words. These incidents aren’t isolated, they are growing.

This has to stop. If you are a church leader who has revoked a temple recommend for a feminist cause, shame on you. You are the one giving your church the black eye, not movements like Ordain Women. In the words of Uchtdorf, “Stop it.”

Stop it now. You are tearing down the Kingdom of God you claim to uphold. This is shameful.

The spiritual abuse against women in our community has to end. There is absolutely no God in this.

If you have been disciplined, whether formally or informally, over this or any other matter, please consider sharing your story at http://www.mormonchurchdiscipline.org. You can email it to mystory@mormonchurchdiscipline.org. Alternatively, you can leave a comment.