This Ain't The First Time

For any and all of you that know my mother, you know that I was raised by a woman that has been passionately involved in woman's rights and women's issues, and has been Weaving The Morning since long before I was born. I have vivid childhood memories of her Radical Mormon Women's Group gathering to discuss, rant, rave, grieve, celebrate and gnaw on the issues of the day - primarily the position of women in the Mormon Church.

I also have clear memories of how they felt when, in the 1970's, the Mormon Church did the same exact thing it's just done with Prop 8 - fighting vigilantly to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Which it did. They were devastated and outraged. I remember tears and anger and general feelings of defeat.

Basically, the ERA was passed in 1972 by the Senate getting 22 of the thirty-eight state ratifications that were necessary. But, the opposition began to take a toll - slowing things to 8 ratifications in 1973, 3 in 1974, 1 in 1975, and 0 in 1976. The amendment was defeated again in 1975 and by 1977, 5 states had voted to rescind and only 13 additional states had ratified.

The Mormons, as with Prop 8, weren't alone in their fight against the ERA. There was something called the Eagle Forum, there was the John Birch Society, the coalition STOP ERA and the Protestants, Catholics and Jews also jumped in the ring.

The pro-ERA side was headed by The National Organization of Women (NOW) and ERAmerica, plus coalitions of nearly 80 other mainstream organizations.

Opponents insisted that the ERA undermined "traditional family values" and promoted "sexual permissiveness, abortion, childcare, homosexuality, and uni-sexuality." They claimed the ERA would "deny woman's right to be supported by her husband, privacy rights would be overturned, women would be sent into combat, and legal abortions and homosexual marriages would be upheld."

In 1976, Mormon Church leaders declared ERA to be a "moral issue with many disturbing ramifications for women and for the family as individual members as a whole." President Spencer Kimball stated it "would strike at the family, humankind's basic institution."

The Church held planning meetings for local church leaders to meet with LDS bigwigs in Washington where they strategized how to defeat ERA. Members were urged by their bishops to make donations to "the cause." Speeches against the ERA were constantly made at church meetings and church buildings were used as "anti-ERA literature distribution centers." The Church sponsored anti-ERA organizations that operated in Florida, Nevada, North and South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois and Arizona.

The Ensign (the Mormon Church's official magazine) published articles further declaring the church's position, speeches were given by church leaders in various locations. Bishops, stake presidents, teachers and women read statements in classes, and official press packets were widely distributed to local newspapers, television personalities and other individuals in the media. In March 1980, the Church went all out with the publication of "The Church and the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment: A Moral Issue."

I remember how upset some of my mother's friends were when the LDS church filled buses with Mormon women and transported them to areas that were voting so they could vote against the amendment. According to a relative of mine, who was a bishop at the time, many of those women were sent there against their will.

Ward newsletters repeatedly called for political participation in fighting the amendment's ratification. The same newsletters told ward members that if they wanted 'to support the Prophet in his opposition to the ERA, they could call or write to their Congressmen. Anti-ERA candidates were scheduled for speeches and advertisements were handed out in church houses. Notices of pro-ERA legislators were posted in the hallways of meetinghouses, and even sample letters of opposition one might send to their legislators were posted as well. At Relief Society or Sunday School, petitions were circulated and delivered to state legislators. One petition read in part: "We consider the Equal Rights Amendment a nonpartisan issue and will, in the 1979 elections, vote only for those candidates who oppose ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment."

During the summer of 198l, National Organization for Women (NOW) sent missionaries to Utah to go door to door asking Mormons to support the ERA - but it did no good. In 1982, the battle for ERA came to an end. According to NOW, since 1985 to the present, ERA has been reintroduced into each session of Congress and has been held in Committee.

Does all of this sound familiar?

The Mormon Church has done this before. And, trust me, if allowed they'll do it again. And again. And again...


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The information in this post was gathered from emails, journal entries of family members and much was flat out cut-n-pasted from an article "The Mormon Church and the ERA" (August 2005) by Sarah Smith.

Further references for any interested are: "Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and the Equal Rights Amendment" by Martha Bradley Ph.D. [Signature Books]; "A Moral Issue" Utah Holiday Magazine (January 1980), Linda Sillitoe and Paul Swenson; "A Lawyer Looks at the Equal Rights Amendment" (1980), Rex E. Lee; "Why ERA Failed" (1986), Mary Frances Berry; and "Rights of Passage"(1986), Joan Hoff-Wilson.