Spiritual Blackmail:

The Mormon Church Attacks the ERA

By Amy Schuman

Like many women, Sonia Johnson became a feminist by falling in love. The object of her love was the ERA. As a result, she was expelled from the church that she and five generations of her family had devotedly served, experienced the end of her 22-year marriage, and devoted her future to the exposure of the Mormon Church's secret crusade against equality for women.

Sponsored by local N.O.W. and the First Unitarian Church of Shaker Heights, Sonia Johnson spoke in Cleveland on March 5. "I didn't need the women's movement; I was really happy. I thought that feminists were all those dissatisfied women that men don't want, bitter because men found them

unattractive." These were her feelings until in April of 1978 she attended a church meeting in order to hear more about Mormon opposition to the ERA. "Just offhand, I liked the name of the amendment. I was very curious why the church was opposing such a fine-sounding name....If I hadn't gone to that meeting, I wouldn't be here now.”

When a Mormon official read the Equal Rights Amendment aloud, “I realized that I loved it. It took hold of my heart, and never has let go since. It was beautiful, and good, and simple, and true. I was hit by the women's movement like a ten-ton truck as it ran over me. He [the church official] explained that we didn't need the ERA because the men of the church loved us. Somehow, when I heard it that night, 1 realized it didn't mean that at all. I realized that they tolerated us, condescended, patronized, and could not understand why we would want anything more than their love. He went on to describe how the church always held women in esteem, and I groaned aloud. You have to understand that in meetings, the church is very quiet, except for babies crying, and I began to moan out loud. I understood."

"I became a feminist in those 45 minutes. I was in the biggest conflict of my life as I left that room. I experienced in that meeting what I later read in Mary Daly's writing: patriarchal language always says the exact opposite of what it means....The church made me a feminist, and later made me a political activist."

For the next six months, Sonia Johnson read through every femmist work she could find. Drawing on "a backlog of happiness," she left her relatively simple, happy world of teaching English part-time,

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attending church, and caring for her family, in favor of lonely engagements, night after night, describing with undiminished passion the threat that the Mormon Church poses to women's equality.

Describing herself as "just a Mom," her words belied that simplification. Referring to the power of the Mormon Church, she warned: "They are so organized that thinking of it makes my heart beat fast. The power is in their secrecy-we can't find out what's happening." She describes how the Mormon Church uses "spiritual blackmail" to organize Mormon women against the ERA. Church fathers gather Mormon women together and direct them in antiERA activity. They tell the women: "Don't tell anyone the men have organized you. It makes us look as if we're trying to keep you subservient.” As Sonia

A. Grifalconi, after Michelangelo

exclaims in anger, "Women are being used as means for their own oppression".

Sonia is careful to distinguish between the political and religious activities of the church. She is still a believer in the Mormon faith. However, she explains that she has gone through a process that many religious feminists must experience. "We. must rethink God so that He isn't in the image of the men of the Church who are so deeply chauvinistic. We each person travelling to express her views represents 1,000 to 1,500 other people with the same beliefs! She exhorts us also to travel to our legislators, to tell them our views: "They don't hear from enough of us."

Sonia's awakening, in the spring of 1978, led her have to deprogram ourselves about God." Although this process has enabled her to remain a believer in the Mormon Church, it hasn't stemmed her fury at its political activities.

"The Mormon Church is effecting political policy and hiding behind ecclesiastical skirts. In regard to the ERA, we have to treat them like a political organization." She explains that the Mormon Church. is one of the 20 richest organizations in the country, taking in $3 to $4 million a day from various investments and contributions. After missionary work, opposition to the ERA is their No. I priority. "They hold political meetings in their religious buildings. They send Bishops to people's homes asking donations to oppose the ERA." They organize busloads of women in every state to travel to state capitals and lobby representatives against the ERA. They provide assistance with child care and other necessities to enable women to take such trips. According to Sonia, political representatives figure that

directly to action. Together with three other Mormon women, she founded a support and action group, Mormons for ERA. She describes with great humor the laughter and joy of their work together. They flew a plane over the bi-yearly gathering of the Church Fathers trailing a banner which read "Mother in Heaven Loves Mormons for ERA". They marched for ERA in Washington in August of 1978 carrying a banner reading "Mormons for ERA are Everywhere". She exclaimed, with irony, "That's like a banner saying, 'Astronauts for Flat Earth'!"'

The women were asked by Sen. Birch Bayh to testify in support of the ERA before a Senate subcommittee. Since Sonia was the only one not working full-time, she was elected to testify. For an entire week she struggled to write her Senate testimony. "I felt a terror that week. I was alone, and couldn't sleep or eat or pray. I was in fear for my life. I felt I would die." She could not complete her testimony until one day, kneeling in an attempt to pray, she felt the presence of the early feminists in the room with her. They stood tall and strong, their heads only inches from the ceiling. She felt power and support flowing from them. She felt she had plugged into all the good that women had given each other throughout history. She didn't have to rely on her strengths alone and, supported by the love of her predecessors, she completed her testimony.

Later, she discovered that Alison Cheek, the first woman to be ordained a minister in the Episcopal Church, had experienced the same terror. As she travelled to her ordination, Alison felt such fear that she "couldn't move her limbs". She too was certain she would die. Both women agreed that their actions were severe violations of their cultural-taboos.

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'Sociologists have found that in primitive societies, when an individual breaks a taboo, they go to a private place, lie down, and die. They are so convinced that they cannot break such a taboo and still live. In the same way, we broke ingrained taboos of our culture. When we go against male stereotypes, we go against taboos."

Sonia Johnson showed the courage to go against the taboos.of her culture, and this action eventually led to expulsion and estrangement from her Church. Yet, she continues to fight, pray, and warn us of the threat that her beloved Church poses to our equality. We too must listen, and take action.

May 10, 1980: ·

March for ERA!

On May 10 a National Support March for ERA will be held in Chicago. Organized by National N.O.W. and other women's organizations, this march will take place in the state where in 1978 ratification of the ERA lost by only 2 votes. Illinois is considered essential to final ratification of the ERA, which must be approved by three more states by June 30, 1982.

Information on the march is available from National ERA March office, (312) 782-7205. Locally, N.O.W. members are reserving buses which will depart from CSU on Friday, May 9. Round trip will cost $30. You can reserve seats by the April 22 deadline by sending a check (payable to ERA Regional Task Force) to: Linda Erb, 597 Walnut, Euclid, Ohio 44132. For further information, contact May at 951-7636. (days) or 289-1825 (evenings).