00:04 [text]
Do what is right; let the consequence follow.
Mormon hymnal no.237
[music plays]
00:20
The Lord has directed that only men will be ordained to offices in the priesthood.
Latter- Day Saints surely recognize that qualifying for exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights but a matter of fulfilling responsibilities.
[music plays]
00:43
KATE KELLY: Every single Mormon man is ordained above the age of twelve and zerp Mormon women have the priesthood.
00:52
ABBY HANSEN: As a Mormon always learn seek truth no matter where it is and that it important to find truth.
HEIDI DOGGETT: There are not many Mormon feminists.
ABBY HANSEN: My name is Abby Hanson.
A lot has changed in my life the last six months.
KATE KELLY: It's a universal story of people who wake to the fact that they are not being treated equally and fighting back.
01:19
ABBY HANSEN: We want to be a part of it. We want to be together with them, and we want to listen.
We don't want to cause a disruption.
[text] WHERE WE STAND
ABBY HANSEN: We don't want to cause a problem.
We just want [audio fades out]
[music playing]
ABBY HANSEN: I grew up in Utah as a very faithful Mormon.
I’ve been a member of the church my whole life.
My neighborhood, we are all Mormon.
[music plays]
01:42
ABBY HANSEN: We have got to get going.
There you go.
Alright, let's go.
If you are good at church, I will consider not making you go to your room.
ANNA HANSEN: Hey!
BENJAMIN HANSEN: Bite me.
ANNA HANSEN: Hey!
ABBY HANSEN: Benjamin stop!
If you’re bugging Anna you will just stay in your room all day tomorrow.
How fun does that sound?
BENJAMIN HANSEN: Fun.
ABBY HANSEN: Ok, then do it.
Try me.
02:07
ANNA HANSEN: He messed up my heart!
ABBY HANSEN: Benjamin, give it back to her right now.
[kids crying]
ABBY HANSEN: Here I am out to dinner with girlfriends and I have diapers.
Does anyone need to change a diaper?
You here some people talk about the church and they might say oh I never really fight in.
That was not me.
[text] Abby Hansen, member
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
ABBY HANSEN: Like, I was very very good fit.
It’s so good to have a tight community but if you are suddenly an outsider that's terrible because there is nothing else but your tight little community.
02:37 As the years went by I started to have questions and concerns.
To get from believe everything the church tells me to, okay nevermind I disagree with the church on something. Thats a huge monumental shift.
02:54 The church says gay marriage is wrong so there has got to be a reason behind that.
But I just don't think homosexuality is a choice.
Our church didn’t ordain black men into the priesthood before 1978.
I don't think that came from God.
That was wrong.
That started to roll over into the way we talk so strictly about roles.
03:19 The way I was raised, I automatically put men a step above me.
I felt like I needed to go to man to get permission.
Men in our church are authorities and women aren’t.
I don’t know how much longer I can do this, and I remember praying like you know what, if you can just hold on.
[text] Kate Kelly, Founder
Ordain Women
KATE KELLY: Lots of people have written about women in the priesthood for years and years and decades and decades.
Um - but I didn't feel like yet another article in a fringe Mormon publication was really going to bring the issue to forefront.
03:49
KATE KELLY: We decided to form a group and do a direct action.
We attempted to attend all male Priesthood Meeting at the church's General Conference.
I’ve been in all kinds of other protests.
I’ve marched at the Supreme Court.
I’ve dressed in a jumpsuit to protest Guantanamo in front of the White House.
Nothing compares to speaking in my own most intimate community.
04:15 [music plays]
KATE KELLY: Confrontation is so taboo in our culture.
[music plays]
KATE KELLY: So we went and one by one we asked if we could be let in.
[music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: There was a discussion board online.
There was thread talking about this Ordain Women group that went to Temple Square.
04:43 [music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: They didn't let them in.
Wait a minute we need to change this.
Like, women need to be in these places.
[music plays]
KATE KELLY: Welcome everyone to launch of Ordain Women.
My name is Kate Kelly. Uh, I'm a wife, I'm a mother, no I'm not really a mother.
05:13 Um - I just want wanted to get some street cred in Mormonism.
ABBY HANSEN: This is the answer!
I found my people!
These are women who are saying the same things I have been scared to say outloud!
KATE KELLY: And I believe that women should be ordained.
LORIE WINDER: I think we saw the website as just a vehicle for information, but what's interesting is the profiles became an action in and of themselves.
Profiles are portraits showing who are these women who are willing to go public about their belief that women should be ordained.
[text] Lorie Winder, Co-Founder
Ordain Women
You don't know how you know your local leaders will respond and you don't want to be excommunicated.
05:54
[text] Emily Rampton, participant
Ordain Women
EMILY RAMPTON: We have a quote from one of our leaders a long time saying the three biggest threats to the church is homosexuality, intellectualism, and feminism.
LORIE WINDER: There had been some push back in the early 90’s and 1993.
MARINA CAPELLA: The September 6th of 1993.
LORIE WINDER: Where you had some major feminists.
MARINA CAPELLA: Who had been excommunicated.
KATE KELLY: So an excommunication is a type of spiritual death.
MARINA CAPELLA: You can no longer participate in very meaningful ways in your church congregation.
06:22
HEIDI DOGGETT: According to Mormons this is going to break her sealing to her husband.
She is going to lose her eternal family.
[wind and dogs barking]
ABBY HANSEN: I kept thinking well, I'll just quietly support Ordain Women.
Rather than let everyone think I'm crazy, but everywhere I went I kept feeling like you need to put a profile up.
I’d be driving down the road, and I’d be at the grocery store at the gym working out thinking what I could write in my profile.
I kept having that thought come back and come back.
06:53 It would not leave me.
[music plays]
[sound of typing]
07:35
EMILY RAMPTON: The main thing right now is obedience.
Obey your leaders.
KATE KELLY: Politeness is right next to Godliness in Mormonism.
MARINA CAPELLA: So makes talking about anything
Any question, any hard issue it makes it really difficult.
ABBY HANSEN: My bishop was not happy with me.
I think he was really trying to do what he thought was right.
And the words that were used were, you're dangerous.
08:03 They told me to take my profile down and publicly say I was misguided, I was was misled, I was wrong I apologize.
I was like I had the strongest spiritual experience of my life to do this.
I either listened to my bishop or God, and I'm like what do I - not what do but I was like bishop I’m sorry I love you but no.
[Music plays]
[Video] ABBY HANSEN: Hi!
Don't eat my frosting.
It's Mother's Day!
It's my cake!
[text] Dallin H. Oaks
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
DALLIN H. OAKS: Only to his daughter has got given the power to be a creator of bodies so God's design and the great plan might meet fruition.
[Video]
BENJAMIN HANSEN: No! Don't look!
08:43
ABBY HANSEN: Anna go away!
K go ahead.
What were you saying?
DALLIN H. OAKS: They are not bearers of the Priesthood.
They are not charged with carrying out the duties and functions of the Priesthood.
[video]
ABBY HANSEN: Are you excited to see what the Easter Bunny left you while we were at church?
BENJAMIN HANSEN: Yes.
ABBY HANSEN: Yay!
Go hide Easter eggs.
Say bye.
BENJAMIN HANSEN: Bye.
[music playing]
09:01
KATE KELLY: Someone like Abby who is a stay at home mom in a suburb of Utah, what she is doing is so gigantic.
She risks ostracization by her neighbors, the teachers of her kids at school, her pharmacist, you know anyone she comes in in contact with is Mormon.
09:23
ABBY HANSEN: Mormon, Mormon, Mormon.
[music plays]
[text]
KATE KELLY: Hang in there Abby!
I think your experience with your Bishop will help other women.
You are a champion!
ABBY HANSEN: My bishop who had consulted with his leaders implied that his responsibility was now to come down and protect the other women in the ward from me, and that if he needed to he was going to excommunicate me.
Like he needed to make a stand that I was not okay.
09:50 Mix it up and I’ll -
ANNA HANSEN: With a fork?
ABBY HANSEN: Ya.
Break up all the yokes.
I couldn't sleep and I was getting these bad stomachaches, and they had to of been like stress induced.
ANNA HANSEN: Mom, I just keep on having a dream about something and guess what?
ABBY HANSEN: Is it like a happy dream or a scary dream?
ANNA HANSEN: Mmm - a happy dream.
Well - sometimes it kinda gets scary.
10:10
ABBY HANSEN: I would be trying to get ready to go to church and I would just be sobbing.
Just trying to get myself calm down.
Jane’s using her fork like a big girl.
DALE HANSEN: Good job Jane!
ANNA HANSEN: Mom! Ketchup on top.
DALE HANSEN: Say please.
ANNA HANSEN: Can please get me ketchup on top mom?
ABBY HANSEN: We got to get ready for church after this.
Ok.
Its really hard because you don't know how things are affecting kids.
10:37
ANNA HANSEN: I think i did it -
So, start like this.
ABBY HANSEN: When discipline was going on, I tried to explain you know how you have bad days? Sometimes grownups have bad days too.
I don't want my kids growing up thinking the same things I thought.
I don't want them to have to have an awakening.
But I need you to come over here because church starts in fifteen minutes and your hair isn't done yet.
So, Anna I am wearing pants today.
Sometimes ladies might wear pants to church and do you know why?
ANNA HANSEN: Why?
11:02
ABBY HANSEN: It's kinda like this nice thing to say if you're different we still love you and want you to come to church.
But there is just this really really strong culture norm about not wearing pants to church on Sundays.
Oh! oh! Careful!
ANNA HANSEN: Why?
ABBY HANSEN: I don't want you to make a mess.
When you realize that just organizing a group of women to wear pants to church on Sundays got death threats, you kinda realize how big of a deal it is for women to be asking for the Priesthood.
[music plays]
11:37
ABBY HANSEN: I think it's been hard for my husband.
He went from me being a really perfect Mormon wife, to now I'm married to a woman who is now in the New York Times for activism against our church.
One thing I will say is my husband, who is never planning on actively trying to advocate for our the ordination of women. He came from that to a point where he said you know what, women might get the Priesthood someday. And there is nothing wrong with asking for it.
12:07
DALE HANSEN: It's like a Christmas tie.
Should I wear this to church today?
ABBY HANSEN: If you can get my husband who is like the most Mormon, a return missionary to come over and say okay I see what Ordain Women are saying.
I feel like there is hope for everyone in the church!
[music plays]
12:33
DOUG FABRIZIO: From KEUR news in Salt Lake City this is Radio West.
Ally Isom is joining from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
She is a senior manager in Department of Public Affairs.
ALLY ISOM: Where they have crossed a line is in the advocacy of a position contrary to church doctrine.
When you use a grammatical ultimatum, Ordain Women
DOUG FABRIZIO: Ordain Women, that's your that's the problem.
ALLY ISOM: That's a doctrinal change.
It presents some problems.
12:58
DOUG FABRIZIO: Don't you think it would be reasonable to expect if they push the issue a bit there might be some room for change?
ALLY ISOM: Yes, this is a church of change.
That change does not occur because someone has positioned or lobbied for it.
The change occurs because God proscribes it to be so.
One can not use a mortal lens to assert what is best.
It is one thing for me to say here's how I feel. It's another thing for me to say you should too.
13:29
[text] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints declined request for comment.
[music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: Well I just found this one by Googling Ordain Women talking about how stupid we are, no one cares about us, boohoo, go find another church that will have you. Um -
[music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: Here's kinda, the feeling I got from my bishop.
13:54 He didn't think I really understood what was going on and he would come to me and he said okay Abby I’ve researched this group for you and I’ve found out about this Kate Kelly. Let me explain to you what they are.
And I just wanted to be like are you kidding me?
This is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
Do you think I don't know everything about every single member?
Now I need my bishop to explain it to me because I'm too dumb to understand on my own?
14:18[music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: Kate is my friend.
She’s not my prophet.
She’s my friend.
[music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: And then Kate’s discipline came.
KATE KELLY: I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight.
Um - not only here in Salt Lake but also in Virginia where the Disciplinary Counsel is being held.
14:46
ABBY HANSEN: Suddenly it wasn't just me anymore.
And people would say like if the church only knew what your bishop was doing they would stop him.
And i'm like nope, obviously no.
KATE KELLY: I feel like what we are doing is right.
Um - when I was a child, I was taught to do what is right and let the consequence follow.
NEWSCASTER: A Mormon Bishop excommunicated a woman who demands equal rights inside the church [audio fades].
15:11
ABBY HANSEN: I just felt like that was it because it's not just my bishop.
This church is saying no.
Like you are not a part of us, we don't want you.
You are selfish, you are unrighteous and you are unwanted.
And I thought, this is the church I belonged to my whole life, and that I have given everything for.
Like I have never been like half way Mormon.
I have done every calling.
I have um-given so much.
[music plays]
15:41
HEIDI DOGGETT: And then I got the news that she really had been excommunicated and I just started crying. And I cried and I cried.
My eight year old was like what's wrong and I had to explain.
EMILY RAMPTON: For good or bad she has become symbolic of all of us.
And So were sad for her but were also sad for us.
MARINA CAPELLA: Cause it felt like with her being excommunicated I was on the chopping block.
16:03
KATE KELLY: Mormonism has tried their best to force me out.
Um-but it's not something that washes off.
The question I get most often is, why not just leave?
I think of Mormonism as my home and just because I want renovations doesn't mean I move.
It means I invest.
But yeah life goes on.
DALLIN H. OAKS: Finally and most important, I testify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ whose Priesthood this is, and whose servants we are. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
16:45
ABBY HANSEN: Well I’ve already put myself out on the line.
There’s nothing else to lose now!
Right?
[Text]
KATE KELLY: Would you want to join our leadership board?
ABBY HANSEN: Heck yes!
I’ve been through everything- i'm in.
KATE KELLY: I'm really glad we gave such a powerhouse like you on our team.
It makes all the work worth it.
-xo,Kate
ABBY HANSEN: We decided to just break into smaller groups and just go to our local meeting houses.
It's important to me to support um - my friends um - and fellow members of Ordain Women.
I see our questions and concerns um - of women like me in the church being noticed and that gives me a lot of hope.
17:19 [music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: Hi, Im Abby.
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: I'm glad to meet you Abby.
ABBY HANSEN: Sister Hansen.
We’re all sisters here.
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: How can I help you?
ABBY HANSEN: Um.. we’re just coming to watch Conference.
I’m sure you know who we are.
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: We do.
ABBY HANSEN: We want to come sit down with like our husbands and our fathers and our sons.
We want to be apart of it.
We want to be together with them.
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: You know you can listen to it online?
ABBY HANSEN: We know that.
Yes, we are, and we are grateful for that.
We don't want to cause a disruption.
We don't want to cause a problem.
We just want to come in.
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: Um - we are not going to stop you.
ABBY HANSEN: Thank you!
You are awesome!
Thank you!
CHURCH REPRESENTATIVE: It's not me.
You are welcome.
18:08
ABBY HANSEN: Thank you very much.
We were let in!
We are not ordained by any means but that was a really important symbolic baby-step.
I felt like a pioneer.
18:29 [music plays]
ABBY HANSEN: Maybe it never happens.
Maybe women never get ordained, but I want my kids to see that I stood up for what I believed in, and that I didn't change my opinions based on what a leader told me.
I stood up for I believed.
[Text]
Abby recently got a new bishop.
She is no longer being considered for excommunication.
She remains active in the church and Ordain Women.
[Credits]