Thanks to people like my father & Casey Ryback, I don't mind taking the role of the sole food preparer in the house. I even bake homemade pastries like grandma used to do.

oh bill

You may have been aware of this when you posted this, but guess who wrote an open letter to the open letter?

http://amandapalmer.net/blog/20131003/

Clearly, the LDS Church does not like this concept.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/10/0 ... -hits.html

Mormon leader: Essential to have women at home
Published: October 5, 2013
By BRADY McCOMBS — Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — A Mormon church leader says having women at home remains an essential part of society, and he cautioned against blurring feminine and masculine differences.

D. Todd Christofferson is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Quorum of the Twelve. His speech Saturday came during a two-day church conference in Salt Lake City.

Christofferson said women's "moral force" has kept societies on the righteous track for generations. He criticized feminist thinkers who view "homemaking with outright contempt."

He said overlooking the differences between men and women would lead to losing the complementary gifts of the two genders that work in harmony.

Later Saturday afternoon, a feminist Mormon women's group called Ordain Women plans to ask to be let in an all-male priesthood meeting to highlight what they perceive as gender inequality.

Feminism makes the argument that complete people need the complimentary gifts of both genders harmonizing within the self, rather than turning us into half a person.

Religion doesn't tend to be feminist. Who'da thunk it?

Goddamn, that was an awesome statement.

The levels of its intolerance can vary by demonination, though. The LDS Church especially cranks it up, though.

Of course. There are feminist movements within the Church, and denominations that represent them. So that's cool. There are also movements and denominations within the Church which are affirming of all sexualities and genders.

Just curious, who are you referring to when you say "the Church"?

Well, my background is Christianity, so I mean all believers of all kinds = the worldwide Church. I don't discriminate. But feminist and affirming movements can be found in all religions, I think.

That's what I thought. I might as well note that while it can be fair to group the Latter Day Saint movement as Christians, they are as different from other Christians as Catholics are different from Protestants.

And this, I fully agree with.

I'm aware of the doctrinal differences between LDS', JW's and other Christians / Catholics and Protestants. Personally? I'm not bothered about them one bit, but then I'm a Pluralist at best, a Universalist at worst, so...

mormons are pretty... uh, 'different' as a group.
I knew a lot of people who are mormon in central PA - they are definitely not like anyone else I've met before...

anyone see that series on PBS about the LDS church a few years ago? it was fascinating.

I've not heard much, but a few stories, positive and... pretty negative

I will say, as people go, Mormons are generally some of the nicest people I've met.

As someone who has lived in LDS territory most of his life and has a wife who is a recovering Mormon, I could go on all day about the evils of the Mormon church. We have spent the last 10 years working with a group that helps women and gays leave the church.

Not to go too far off the thread topic, but they believe that Jesus Christ showed up in America a couple thousand years ago, to reestablish the Christian faith with a group of Israelites who were the forerunners of Native American Indians (completely ignoring the genetic variations between the two).

And the entire history was given to Joseph Smith in a vision by an angel... in the early 19th century.

which, ok? I guess? but as the PBS documentary explains, it was more likely that Joseph Smith was influenced by the changes in American society at the time, and the quickly evolving expansion of the country into new territory (new to the travelers, not to the Native Americans they went about slaughtering in order to take the land, anyway...) - from what I learned, the Mormon church is very big on 'binding' people together in larger and larger familial units, and determines that the fate of a person's eternal soul is dependent on keeping as close and structured a society as possible otherwise they risk damnation. Thus polygamy was encouraged in order to 'grow' that bound unit, and in more recent times (like at the time the documentary was made a few years back) were even engaged in a symbolic yet very systematic 'baptism' of dead Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Causing all kinds of grief (justifiably so) to SURVIVORS of the holocaust - basically trying to eradicate the victims' Judaism and 'bring them to Jesus' to help ensure their own souls would be granted access into heaven...

http://www.pbs.org/mormons/timeline/index.html

the site gives much better explanations that I can, but they don't give much credence to the idea that women are equal to men either...

and I just saw nick's comment and will agree, the Mormons I knew were very nice, but I have to add that the niceness always came across as somewhat stilted to me (and it was before I knew much about Mormons in general, so wasn't influenced by any negative info I had about them etc) - there was sense of 'obligatory' kindness I got from the people I knew. I suppose that could just be me though.

The documentary showed a number of interviews with women and gay men who were treated very badly by the LDS church too. If you haven't seen it, you may find it very interesting to look into.

I believe all that to be true. As far as whether one takes their view of revelation to be "Christian", that would depend on whether people view the Bible to be a "closed book", or whether revelation can continue / has continued beyond its pages and to different people in history. And I personally think that's got to have happened, to a certain extent, even though I wouldn't hold anyone up as a second Jesus or anything, and don't believe in a second Bible. But that's not necessarily what you were asking me. As far as all the things which are antithetical to feminism / intersectionality (or just stuff that's plain horrible in Mormon belief and practise), I believe that all has been present in traditional Mormonism, but I also think that Mormonism, like all religions, has gone through several efforts to modernise these beliefs or do away with them altogether. I know of (or have read of, anyway) many people who would describe their Mormon faith as progressive in that sense. So there would be people who are vaguely on the Mormon "spectrum" of belief who may share the same social / political / identity beliefs that I do, more or less.