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Women’s Suffrage was won twice in Utah. It was granted first in 1870 by the territorial legislature but revoked by Congress in 1887 as part of a national effort to rid the territory of polygamy. It was restored in 1895, when the right to vote and hold office was written into the constitution of the new state. The Wyoming Territorial legislature granted women the right to vote in 1869. In 1890 the right was threatened as Wyoming was trying to become a state. The U.S. Congress, strongly opposed to women’s suffrage, threatened to withhold statehood from Wyoming, Cheyenne officials sent back a a staunchly worded telegram stating that Wyoming would remain out of the Union 100 years rather than join without women’s suffrage On July 10, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill approving Wyoming as the nation’s “Equality State.” Wyoming also elected the nation’s first woman Governor (Nellie Ross) in 1924.
Back when Utah was trying be com a state there was a series of debates between Orson F Whitey and BH Roberts. Whitney wanted to had womens right to vote the the state constitution Roberts did not. 127 years later a women is going to pray is conference! Just goes to show you the church moves very slowly! http://www.amazon.com/Speeches-Whitney-support-woman-suffrage Welcome! From a recent post on a different subject. From the Gospel of Thomas, “(2) Jesus said, “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until that person finds; and upon finding, the person will be disturbed; and being disturbed, will be astounded; and will reign over the entirety.” Maybe this applies, as TS Eliott put it, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” As long as you are in the cave your are doing good, not that you have to stay there. All the minutia is interesting but what counts is what do your beliefs push you in to doing. Then in a moment to my view
The stranger started from disguise.
The tokens in His hands I knew;
The Savior stood before mine eyes.
He spake, and my poor name He named,
“Of Me thou hast not been ashamed.
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not, thou didst them unto Me.”
My great grandmother was married to two men, one was Joseph Smith, in Nauvoo when she was 14 then she married my great grandfather in Nauvoo in 1846 2 years after Joseph was killed. The marriage with Joseph was never consummated and they never lived together. As far as I know there was no temple divorce and she was sealed to my great grandfather. Of course this was in the early days of the Church and of polygamy. There seems to be a few on this site who have experienced a crisis of faith. These crisis seem to be tied to Joseph Smith and church history. There are a lot of Christians out there who also experience a crisis in faith when it comes to the early history of the christian church and the compilation of the New Testament etc. Not to mention the whole conflict of how can a loving God allow the atrocities that occur every day in the word. I was reading in the Gospel of Thomas recently and wanted to share this, “(2) Jesus said, “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until that person finds; and upon finding, the person will be disturbed; and being disturbed, will be astounded; and will reign over the entirety.” Maybe this applies, as TS Eliott put it, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Sterling McMurrin made this comment back in the 80’s, he was a philosophy professor at the “U”, “I have never been disillusionmed by the church because I was never illusioned by it int he first place.” To me that meant not to get caught up in the so called certainties in the church. I think it is important to study our history but not to judge it. Different times require different context we have to understand the context in which things happened. For example the black and the priesthood. When the saints were in Missouri and voting in a block Missouri was wanting to become a salve state the Mormons were a stumbling block on that path. Whether or not it was a conscious decision by the brother at the time to create the new policy about the black not being able to have the priesthood I don;t know I tend t think it was more of a reaction then through the years it took on all kinds of perversions and unfortunately our African American brother and sisters had to suffer from it but with changing ideas and understanding in the greater society it became time to rectify the situation. For years the initial policy was blamed on God and Blacks themselves. In that way the general church did not have take responsibility for their bigotry. Many left the church because of that policy and I am sure there were those who left the church when it was changed as well. We cannot know Josephs mind and many things in church history don’t make sense to us some 200 years later. My great great grandmother was sealed to Joseph when she was 14 years old. I don’t understand why but I am not going to lose an sleep over it either. The problem a lot of us face is that we come in contact with members of the church you have their heads in the sand and do not want to listen to anything negative because it destroys the illusion. I once had a lengthy discussion with a BYU student who refused to believe that the BYU science department offered any classes in Evolution. It is just to easy to label those who have different ideas than us as sinners. Remember when Joseph sent Oliver and others to Canada to sale the BofM copyright. It was by revaluation, they were unsuccessful and very discouraged feeling they had let the Lord and Joseph down, Joseph then stated, “Some revelations are from God, dome form man and some fomr the Satan.” God bless you all on your journey! I feel your frustration! Believe e I have been there. You have to keep things in perspective and try to see the big picture. Humans are evolving and changing all the time. I mean after all once we thought the earth was flat, that the earth was the center of the universe and that the Black Death was caused by sin. Our church leaders today, in the recent past and in the more distant past are all products of their culture and society. Quakers on the moon, Dinosaur bones placed here by the devil., our brothers and sisters of African decent are cursed. We make the mistake of thinking that the church is black and white but it is not. There are lots of shades of gray. We are learning new things all the time and our ideas as a society are always changing and evolving. Take what you feel is good about the church and let everything else go. No one can really say they KNOW a thing until their faith and knowledge of said thing has passed through the crucible of doubt! Joseph Smith Sr. started writing the BofM story in 1811 by plagiarizing the Travels of Marco Polo! Really???? If Sheets is such an expert on the Anthropology and Archeology of North America why did he not choose that as his career rather than chemical engineering? All of is objections to the BofM are answered in the work of John Sorenson and Brant Gardner. I would not give his book any attention at all! I have not read Fowler s book nor listened to the podcast as of yet but it sounds a little like Scott Pecks four stages of spiritual growth in his book “The Different Drummer” Stage one: Chaotic Antisocial, a state of undeveloped spirituality. Our relationships are generally manipulative and self-serving. Stage two: Formal, institutional, we are more concerned about the forms of our religion than with its essence. The letter of the Law, we surrender all freedom of choice and judgment to church leaders. Stage Three, skeptic, individual. we may be seen by others as unbelievers but we tend to be more spiritually developed. This does no mean that all skeptics are spirituality developed many are stuck in stage one. People in stage three tend to be free thinkers and are not bothered nor ground to the earth in dogma theology, culture or historical inconsistencies. Stage Four, mystical, communal, people in stage four seek the unknown and the unknowable. They are logical and reasonable an yet still believe in “this crazy God business.” The celebrate differences and actively peruse community. In talking about faith development in “A Road Less Traveled” Peck makes this observation. “To be vital, to be the best of which we are capable, our religion must be wholly personal, forged entirely through the fire of our own questioning and doubting in the crucible of our own experience of reality.” White Shirts are a tradition based on correlation and the concern for outward appearances. Just like not having facial hair at BYU. I refuse to wear a whit shirt to church and like someone posted earlier I don’t even own one. I sometimes wear black shirts. I use to wear jeans and cowboy boots to church. I still wear jeans but not the boots. Remember the story at BYU in the late seventies about the girl who went to the testing center on a Saturday when it was snowing and they would not let her take her test because she had pants on. she went into the restroom removed her pants and went back into the test center with her long winter coat and they let her take her test. It looked like she had a dress on. The Lord does not care what we wear he cares what is in our hearts.
