The ERA & Prop 8: Voting and Obedience

When the Church tells you how to vote, do you obey?

I’m currently writing my final paper for a Women’s History grad school class. Since we were encouraged to research a topic of our personal interest, I chose Mormon women and the Equal Rights Amendment. I’ve always known that the LDS church opposed the ERA in the 1970s, but the details of what I’m uncovering are frustrating, to say the least. I’ve wanted to scream into my pillow a few times.

After Congress passed the ERA in 1972, thirty-four states quickly ratified the amendment. In January 1975, many thought Utah would be the thirty-fifth state as much of it’s legislature supported it. But when it came to a vote just one month later, ratification overwhelmingly failed. What happened in that month?

The LDS Church stepped in.

When the church placed an editorial in their newspaper Deseret News decrying the amendment in the name of traditional gender roles, Mormons heard the call and rallied. The predominantly LDS legislature voted against the ERA and the majority LDS population support that anti-ERA stance.

Here’s a few of the actions the church took during the 1970s/80s to ensure that the Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified:

-In 1977, Ezra Taft Benson’s office called regional church leaders telling them to send at least ten women to Utah’s upcoming International Women’s Year conference. They sent out letters on the official Relief Society letterhead and made more calls to ensure that each stake was following through. Some wards asked for volunteers or sent the Relief Society presidency, while many others issued callings to attend the IWY. Although not “officially” told by the church how to vote, pre-conference workshops sanctioned by church leadership spread through Relief Society networks where women were instructed to be anti ERA and anti feminist resolutions. Fourteen-thousand Mormon women flooded the IWY and took over, defeating the ERA and all other resolutions.

-After seeing the success of Utah’s IWY conference, the church used similar tactics in Hawaii, Florida, New York, Mississippi, Washington, Alabama, Montana, and Kansas, sometimes even bussing anti-ERA women into the state to attend the conference.

-In Nevada, the ERA was most likely going to pass until the church pulled a last minute Hail Mary. Salt Lake organized anti-ERA firesides at local stake centers the weekend before the vote. 95% of all voting eligible Mormons showed up on election day and the amendment was soundly defeated.

-The Church disciplined or excommunicated women who openly advocated for the ERA. Most famous of these was Sonia Johnson, seen below locking herself the Seattle Temple gates in protest. Supporting the ERA meant not following the prophet, and so women lost callings, temple recommends, church standing, and more.

As of 2019, the church still opposes the ERA.

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In order to be considered righteous, gain access to the temple and salvific rites, and ultimately reach the Celestial Kingdom, we are taught we must follow the prophet. In 1978 General Conference, President Elaine Cannon said, “When the prophet speaks, sisters, the debate is over.” Her words were echoed directly by N. Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency in 1979. Children sing “Follow the Prophet” in primary and this lesson is repeated week after week in Come Follow Me.

When you’re told that your literal salvation is at stake by voting or not voting the way the prophet says, do you vote with the prophet?

In 2008, I was a 19-year-old college student trying desperately be righteous and worthy. In retrospect, I think I was struggling with some religious scrupulosity because I was so obsessive. In 2008, I lived in California.

That year, Proposition 8––defining marriage in the state as only between a man and a women––was on the ballot. I hadn’t even heard of it until the Sunday I sat in church and the Bishop read a letter from the First Presidency. We were told to do everything in our power to support Prop 8. I can still picture where I was in the chapel and how I felt. I was deeply uncomfortable. I knew and loved many gay individuals and I had no intention of voting against their rights. It seemed deeply inappropriate to me that the prophet would say such a thing.

But later that day, guilt set in. I convinced myself that if I wanted to be faithful, I had to obey. That I had to prove I believed in the prophet by supporting Prop 8. That I would only be worthy if I did this thing. And so, actively fighting my own conscience, I poured myself into following instructions.

I hated speaking to strangers, but I knocked doors and made phone calls. I put a sticker on my car. I convinced myself over and over that I was doing good, that I was righteous, and that there was no other option. My stomach churned every time I was asked to do one more thing, donate one more dollar, put up one more sign. In retrospect, I can see how much I gaslighted myself into completely turning upside down a fundamental belief I held—that all humans deserved rights and dignity.

I take responsibility for what I said and did during that campaign, even though it brings me such great shame now. I acknowledge the harm I did. I did what I thought I had to do because the church told me I had to do it. I thought I was saving myself, demonstrating to God and to other members that I was righteous. That I was a good Mormon girl, one worthy of finding a good Mormon boy to marry. One who obeyed without question because that’s what faithful Mormons did. I listened when they told me I was the one being persecuted because it made me feel better about how much deep down I hated myself.

Learning about Mormon women defeating the ERA in the 1970s is like a stab in the gut because I know that 19-year-old me would have been on those Relief Society busses going to the conventions. I would have fought openly against my own rights and my own best interests because a man we call a prophet told me so. I would have squished down the bright, feminist side of myself in order to do what I was instructed.

I’m not that woman anymore, thankfully. I do all I can to be a better ally and stand with the marginalized like Jesus did. I know now that I don’t have to vote or politically organize the way an old white dude in Salt Lake says I have to. I honestly doubt the church will ever want the public image crisis it had in 2008 and take that kind of political position again. But if it did, I wouldn’t hesitate to vote my conscious and for what is right, regardless of the church’s official stance.

When the church tells you how to vote, how to politically organize, how to use your privilege, time, and means, do you obey?

Nineteen year old me thought I had to obey, or else my entire world and future eternity would collapse. But thirty-five year old me knows the truth: God is not a God of oppression, strong-armed obedience, or hatred. God does not live and die by a white, wealthy, 1950s-ideal-that-never-truly-existed family structure. God does not want women to remain second-class citizens in nations or churches.

God is freedom, love, and diversity. They are not an old white, American man. And They will not condemn us for “disobeying” the prophet in these matters.

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