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Dear President Oscarson,

I like you President Oscarson. I like your wit and your humility. I know I’m not a young woman anymore but I feel like you’re my leader. I feel comfortable with you. I want to support all the women leaders in our church. In fact, I look at you like a Helaman and here we are your daughters ready to fight for what you deem worthy. Maybe that’s going a bit far. But you know, we’re Mormon and we like to draw dramatic parallels. Anyway, I bring that up because the other night you asked us to do three things: defend marriage between a man and woman, elevate divine roles of mothers and fathers and stand and defend the sanctity of the home. You also asked us to boldly defend the proclamation.

Now, I want to be on your team President. I want to be one of those faithful saints who says “YES I WILL” to whatever you ask. Like I said above, I want female leaders of our church to be effective and strong and I realize my willingness to do what you ask is in direct correlation with your effectiveness. And when it comes to your messages on inclusion and compassion I am right there on the battlefront (I mean, in theory, in reality I am a failure). But what you asked me to do last night, President, I don’t know if I can do it. If we were sitting in a situation room and the family was under attack as you say it is, before we decided on a stratagem I would ask a few questions. And that’s how I feel right now. Before we carry out this plan as you presented it, I am going to ask some questions to clarify some things:

1. Why is gender so important? And what does it mean when we say “men and women are different”?

2. Why are gender roles important? Why can’t we say it’s the parent’s primary job to nurture, provide, and protect? Why separate the roles by gender? Sorry that was three questions in one. I am writing to you as if you are really reading this and so this is getting sorta weird.

3. Tell me more about the attack on the family. Who is doing the attacking? What are they saying? I am raising four little children and I feel like those who are attacking the family are the people who hate Obamacare. Is that what you are saying? Are you pro-Obamacare like me?

4. In the same vein, when you ask me to defend the Proclamation to whom am I defending it? Also, I don’t know what I am defending. This is very confusing to me. Is it because I live in Provo? Am I too much in the bubble? I mean, even here I have friends who are transgender, but I am not going to knock on their door or anything, you know? I don’t know.

5. Explain preside.

6. When you use the term “doctrine of the family” I don’t know what that means. I just don’t. Are we saying the Proclamation is doctrine? You know what? I don’t even know what the word doctrine means really. Can you explain all of it starting from the beginning?

7. Have you read Chieko Okazaki’s account of the Proclamation and how the women leaders of our church were not consulted before it was presented? I read that interview several years ago and I have to tell you I sobbed for a week about it. You are not asking for my opinion (you aren’t even reading this really) but I think it’s a tragedy that the women of our church had no say in that document. Is a document the same as doctrine? Wait…

8. Is a document the same as doctrine? When do I know if these things are going to stick forever or if they’re going to be around until they don’t make sense anymore? Like you know, many things in our history. The Proclamation is only twenty years old. I mean, it’s a baby. A wee baby blip on the timeline of our church.

9. What do I do if defending the Proclamation and marriage between a man and a woman makes me feel totally unChristlike and what if defending those makes me feel like I am letting my children down and therefore makes me feel like I’m not strengthening my own family? And TANGENT: what if I feel like my greatest enemies aren’t actually living outside of our church but are actually the very women I share our religion? What if I feel like the way they stand for the family makes me feel like I don’t want to stand with them? What if every time the leaders of our church talk about these things it gives them more reason to be awful to people who don’t agree? What if I’ve resigned myself to a lesser kingdom if being in the Celestial Kingdom means I have to hang out with them? AM I GOING TO HELL?

10. What do I do if I have presented these questions to bishops and leaders and anyone and everyone who will listen to me and nobody has any answers but when I go quietly in prayer to the Lord and I hear the entire and total opposite of what you are asking me to do? And what if that answer gives me relief and peace and makes me a better mom and wife and sister and friend? And what if that peace is interrupted every single time I am “called to the battlefront” for this cause? What if it destroys my family, President? That’s what I am really asking. What if “defending the family” ruins my own?

Because I’ve seen it happen to so many families. And I look at these four small children and this man who I gave my complete heart to and my friends whom I love and I feel deep down in my heart I know I cannot choose this battle. I can’t choose it without it destroying me.

What then?