Mormon feminists disputing male word

By Grace Lichtenstein

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New York Times Service

SALT LAKE CITY Mormon feminists are stepping out of the closet, and for many the trek is symbolically as hard as the crosscountry journey their persecuted ancestors took more than a century ago to reach the Utah desert.

On first glance, "Mormon feminists" might almost seem a contradiction. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints denies women entry into the priesthood and opposes the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion and birth control, while promoting marriage and motherhood as a woman's most divine roles.

The Mormons' current president, Spencer W. Kimball, whose word is said to come straight from God, recently declared, "The role of woman was fixed when she was created" and pronounced members of the feminist movement "Pied Pipers of sin."

Nevertheless, the third annual "Women Unlimited" conference presented here recently made it clear that Mormon women increasingly are standing up for their rights, striving for careers outside the home and questioning longheld religious beliefs.

"The church can't tell anyone what to do," Linda Taylor, a young teacher, told the audience at one session. "If it comes to a choice, I'll take the ERA."

To non-Mormons, such a statement might seem melodramatic. But within Utah, where Mormons make up 60% of the population and where polygamy is still practiced illegally by some, women who espouse feminism risk personal attack as well as emotional anguish.

Indeed, several Women interviewed asked that their names not be used because they feared reprisals or ostracism.

"I am very suspect," began one woman who wore an Equal Rights pin but considered herself deeply religious. She and several friends had formed an "underground"

Spencer W. Kimball . . . "pied pipers of sin.” consciousness-raising group that they half-jokingly called their "cell," since traditionalists might brand them Communists.

"I've had Mormon men ask me right out if I'm a lesbian because I'm not married," the 33-year-old woman explained, adding that she and other unmarried friends have chosen to remain celibate rather than break the Mormon sexbefore-marriage creed.

Was there no middle ground? she was asked. "There may be but I don't know what it is," she replied.

According to Moana Bennett, a church spokesman, the church believes man to be the "provider," woman the 'nurturer." Thus, the president of the largest women's church auxiliary, Barbara B. Smith of the Relief Society, spoke out not long ago against the ERA on the grounds that it could be "harmful to the solidarity of the family and the optimum protection of children."

The conference, sponsored by the University of Utah Women's Resource Center, reflected stunning modern-day paradoxes within Mormonism. One small meeting room, for example, featured two right-to-life displays, one abortion information table, a poster adverfising Salt Lake City's homosexual bars and a Relief Society booth.