This “talk” is a fantasy. I wrote it as a response (albeit imperfect) to Elder Anderson’s “Cherishing Life,” as delivered during his April 2025 General Conference address. I publish it as a means to opening conversation and do not claim all women will see things as I do, nor that I have written all that must be written. With that said, please imagine Elder Andersen standing at the podium and saying:
TO THE SISTERS OF THE CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the one thing that the Brethren most want you (and your husbands) to understand today is how much we value you, the daughters of God, and how much we value your life. Each of us sitting in these plush chairs is thinking of you, whether you be in this great hall or in distant places. We appreciate all you have done, are doing, and may still do to bear the children of each new generation and to raise children to love the Lord. We acknowledge that many of you have suffered because those of us who stand here, pronouncing church doctrine from this historic pulpit, have repeatedly emphasized the idea that a woman’s value and her worth comes through child bearing and child rearing. We’ve done this even though we understand that many of our faithful sisters are unable to conceive and do not have the opportunity, including through adoption, to raise children during mortality. Our hearts are with you. We never should have equated a woman’s worth with her ability to conceive, bear children, and/or raise children.
Category: revelation
Allyship is a Love Unworthy of Rebuke
LAST SUNDAY, I CAUGHT another glimpse of what it might be like to sit as an LGBTQIA congregant in a chapel surrounded by people you love, while they are comforted by a sermon that depicts your greatest hope as evil. If you’re LDS, you’ve likely had a high councilor deliver a classic sermon like the one mine did last Sunday, one that used thinly veiled language to praise those who resist “the pressures of the world” which “call good, evil and evil, good” by “fully sustaining the prophet.” While this language may be used to encourage avoidance of various sins, in this instance, it was also clearly coded as a rebuke against those of us who don’t accept and promote current LDS doctrine and policy about LGBTQIA people as eternal truth, whether we be LGBTQIA ourselves or an outspoken ally. The assumption is that if we disagree with the fallible human who serves us in the priesthood office of prophet, we disagree with God. Today, I’m not going to run a convoy of reason through the gaping holes in that logic. Rather, I want to speak specifically as an ally who was subjected to a type of public rebuke.
Continue reading “Allyship is a Love Unworthy of Rebuke”
Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt 