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RELIGION

Mormon Women Receive Death Threats for 'Wear Pants to Church Day'

They hoped to draw attention to women's role in the LDS church

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t +

Image: Feminist Mormon Housewives

When Mormon women staged "Wear Pants to Church Day" on the Sunday before Christmas, they hoped to draw attention to the role of women in the church. They succeeded, but they also drew criticism from male church members, and, unfortunately, death threats that were posted to the event's Facebook page.

The church has no rule against pants-clad women in Church, but many Mormon women feel pressured to wear a dress. Some said they didn't join the protest because they feared a backlash.

The protest was launched on Facebook and attracted thousands of participants, many of whom posted images of themselves dressed for church. Threats made on participants' Facebook pages are being investigated by "local authorities," according to the NYTimes.

The Times also quotes negative responses from male church members, including one man who suggested the women find another church, and another who said "women who want to wear pants, they just don't know how to follow the Lord."

Aimee Hickman, editor of Mormon feminist magazine Exponent II, said she was initially ambivalent about the protest, but she's on board having seen that the event "has people talking about Mormon gender roles more than anything I've seen."

The women involved said they hoped to open a dialogue about the ways in which boys and men are given more authority than girls and women within the church.

Via the New York Times.
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Is "Wear Pants to Church Day" a good idea?

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127 Comments (view in Forum)

  • jessejaymes
    !
    This proves it. Mormons are Christians after all. It's the Christian tradition. Kill anyone not just like them. You know except for beheading and beating women in public the American Christian right is resembling the Taliban more and more.
  • norezen
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    @Sonny Yeah death threats over wearing pants.
    I would have thought religious zealots have more to be angry about than how a person's clothes fit. I stand corrected.
  • Barack_Blocker
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    @jessejaymes "You know except for beheading and beating women in public the American Christian right is resembling the Taliban more and more."

    You mean the religion Hussien Obama belongs to?(smirk)

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  • FFX_VA
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    @InjusticeSucks I know quite a few Mormons, and theology aside, every one I've met has been an extremely good person willing to help you at the drop of a hat. They are extremely family & community oriented, the salt of the earth. From your statement you appear to be biased against them for some strange reason, perhaps some myth you were told as opposed to personal experience. How many Mormon friends have you had in your life?
  • Coolvoter
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    Lol but the Christians went through all that trouble making Mormons just like regular Christians... Now they get to sit in that mess haha
  • truthsayer
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    That violation of the 11th commandment calls for a stoning. How dare they think they should be able to dress themselves or have a independent thought at all. There all going to hell. Conform now or lose your soul lady's. The call for burkas will be next I'm sure.
  • Yvonne
    !
    @jessejaymes I have agreed with most everything you say on here but I don't agree with this. I was raised Baptist (don't agree with everything now that I understand more) but Baptists don't think you will go to hell for dancing. Actually some of the churches where I live have a band that plays in the church and everywhere I've went to church, most women wear pants and believe it or not....I live in the so-called Bible Belt!!
  • jessejaymes
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    @Yvonne I was raised Baptist and we were told we'd go to hell for dancing. Maybe it's a some regional thing but I know it is practice in at least some Baptist churches.

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  • Bobolinsky
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    It used to be that the steelworkers and schoolboys put on their dress pants, button-down shirt and clip-on tie to go to church and the women and girls dressed in their equally uncomfortable clothes. Women wore too much perfume and men wore too much Old Spice. Someone wearing jeans and a t-shirt would have felt very out of place.

    My brother tells me that that isn't the norm anymore. But if that's the extent to which women feel pressure to wear a dress instead of slacks, and that's what it appears to be, then it doesn't come close to comparing with this...

    http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/08/14/af...
  • wild_turkey6
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    Brother, you don't know the half of it. I kind of thought it was ironic that they go by the Islamic calendar here. It is year 1434. But even if they went by the Gregorian calendar, it would still be stuck in 1434.
  • truthsayer
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    No sir no comparison at all in its severity. But it does show without a doubt what can happen when allowing the mixture of religion and government. I have no problem with others religious believes. I only have a problem when those believes become mandates. Any limits on my behavior that causes no harm to others I see as an obstruction of liberty and frankly pure arrogance. Maybe the worst of all sins.
  • tomincali
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    now that will start a ruckus that would never be aired. though it did cause problems when a women thought her id should be of her wearing one with only her eyes showing for the id picture. try that in a store here will think you are a robber.
  • Coolvoter
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    @tomincali that's dumb. The point if a photo is to identify the individual. A burka kinda keeps that's from happening. You can't wear hats, and some states can't smile...
  • Romney_Rube
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    @Coolvoter What if a law were passed that would ALLOW ACTIVE CRIMINALS OR TEERORISTS to wear their masks or hoodies for their license photos? As part of the application process, apllicants would be required to list their last three criminal acts with pertinent info to insure they were qualified in order to use a mask for a photo?

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  • Realthinker
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    Where to even begin? This legalism is nonsense. In Jesus's time the clothing they wore had almost no difference between the sexes, so I do not know when skirts for women and pants for men became mandatory. It's tradition, not Biblical. In some cultures women have always worn pants. I have been wearing pants to church for at least thirty years. But a few years ago, when we were searching for a church to replace one that had closed, we decided to try a particular church on a Sunday evening. I was wearing pants and I was the only woman doing so. The pastor launched into a sermon about womaen who "wear men's clothing". Needless to say we did not return. That said, there are times when I love wearing a skirt, especially in warm weather.
  • Realthinker
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    @ctc Something teen girls and young women need to learn is the allure of an ankle length flowing skirt. What you cannot see is far more sexy than baring it all.
  • Realthinker
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    @WMCOL Skirts are cooler than pants, which is why they are more comfortable in warm weather. It is also why I prefer pants in winter. Even the Amish girls in Ohio wear seat pants under their dresses in winter. To be very honest, after hip surgery, putting on the trouser socks, or hose and boots necessary to stay warm in Ohio is pure torture.

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  • WMCOL
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    Doesn't make much difference anyway, the church has turned its back on God by wrongly keeping Sunday for the Sabbath, directly in opposition to Scripture. They practice a way that seems right unto humans but the ends thereof are death. Billions are deceived, made to believe lies, because of their hardened hearts preventing them from seeking the truth.
  • Fishbone345
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    @PoliticalSpice @WMCOL This is a church that insists that the Garden of Eden is downstate New York, that their second bible is the word of God and was translated with magic stones in a hat, that native Americans have dark skin because they were cursed, that their church leader talks to God directly in the Temple and that God wants them to wear underwear with Freemason symbols adorning them (the same Freemason symbols are on their temples btw).
    They aren't the most logical bunch.
  • John_Matrix
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    @Fishbone345

    I thought Eden was supposed to be in Missouri according to them. Anyway, their religion isn't any more retarded than Catholicism, more mainstream Christianity, etc. It's all made up nonsense than can be debunked with only an ounce of rational thinking and logic.

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  • Dan_Tien
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    The Mormon Church once had institutionally sanctioned racism, which "the prophet" announced was no longer the will of God (just in time to avoid problems with the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Now maybe it is time for the prophet to get a message from God about institutional sexism.
  • dances-weebles
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    @PoliticalSpice it depends on the style of the pants. the cute, tight, hip-hugger style of pants are definitely within god's plan as are hot pants and daisy dukes.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @Fishbone345 Not that amazing. The TV show 20/20 found a "reformed Mormon" family out in Utah living out of a trailer in a remote area. Guy had 7 wives including one who was 11 years old. 20/20 turned them into the authorities (Utah is more than 70% Mormon and the state Attorney General was Mormon) and two years went by. 20/20 asked why the man had not been arrested. They couldn't find him by golly. Not to be found. Vanished without a trace. 20/20 went back the same location where they had found the man and his wives and lo and behold they were still there. Hadn't moved an inch. And the now 13 year old was pregnant. Strange how God never finds the need, the drive, the desire to protect the children.
  • Fishbone345
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    @jessejaymes I was being sarcastic my friend, I live in Utah. I'm more than informed of the hypocrisy that goes on and the shady dealings they do.

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  • wertg
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    Wow!'The Times also quotes negative responses from male church members, including ... another who said "women who want to wear pants, they just don't know how to follow the Lord."'
    I guess I missed the parts in the ancient texts about Jesus' statements about wearing pants...(of course, I suspect that he, if he existed, wore a robe)
  • Comment removed for Engagement Etiquette violation. Replies may also be deleted.
  • Thunderchicken
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    @Fishbone345

    Yep but then the Catholic church was behind the times then too. Some of the more conservative parishes fought changes such as allowing musical instruments other than the church organ. And the women head covering bit was a biggie too.
  • RobertJHarsh
    !
    I wonder how this story would have went during the election. I would still like to know when Mormonism moved from freak show/evil scientist to mainstream religion. Would have Romney picked up the phone and told the church leaders to tone down this jackassery?
  • Coolvoter
    !
    Romney would have supported it, than said it was bad, soon after he would maybe kind Of support it, and then he would tell you he would tell you his opinion after he gets elected.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    The religion didn't change but the right wing did not want to talk about this, and dems and left leaning voters don't consider religion much of a factor in voting...
  • PoorDem
    !
    My Brother and his family was and still is a recent member of the LDS chruch, from the day he sit foot in this church he has been a person whom i have not known in my life, we never hang out, he always has the missionaries around them, and very very weird acting with some of the most crazy ways of thinking i have come to witness, what goes on in this church?
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