Small group of Ordain Women supporters gather for demonstration

Small group of Ordain Women supporters gather for demonstration

(Stacie Scott/Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — A group of about 30 Ordain Women activists gathered outside Temple Square on Saturday to demonstrate their continued desire for female members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be ordained to the church's priesthood.

The men and women in the group participated in what they termed as "living picture" portrayals of events from church history, including women laying their hands on the heads of others seeking blessings of health. The demonstration took place following the Saturday afternoon session of the church's 185th Semiannual General Conference.

Lorie Winder, a member of the board for Ordain Women, said the event was intended to illustrate their advocacy for women to be given office in the priesthood and equal inclusion in priesthood-oriented church practices.

Photo: Stacie Scott/Deseret News
Photo: Stacie Scott/Deseret News

"What we'd like to do is highlight ways that women in the past participated more inclusively in the rituals of the church. We're hoping that eventually, women, like men, will have full access to the priesthood," Winder said. "We're hoping we're seeing a new era of openness to inclusion for women."

Church history records reflect that women took part in offering healing prayers of faith in the years after the church was restored in 1830, and, at times, laid hands upon the heads of those they prayed for. But there is no record of women ordaining men or women to priesthood office as the term ordination is understood today.

The LDS Church has consistently taught that men and women are equal, with divine origin and promise, as the sons and daughters of God.

Photo: Stacie Scott/Deseret News
Photo: Stacie Scott/Deseret News

"Our church doctrine places women equal to and yet different from men. God does not regard either gender as better or more important than the other," Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said in the April 2014 edition of the New Era, an LDS Church publication.

"When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which is priesthood power," he said. "Access to the power and the blessings of the priesthood is available to all of God's children."

Following the demonstration, the group gathered at the entrance of City Creek Park, where they sang songs and gave brief remarks. As part of a ceremony, members of the group individually attached keys to a gated metal arch, a recent public art installation at the park, symbolic of participation in the priesthood.

"We would like to enter into the same gate with the same authority and the same power as our brothers," said Bryndis Roberts, chairwoman-elect of Ordain Women. "We hope other vistas will be opened for us."

A representative of the church declined to comment Saturday.

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