Hi, I’m Mike.
I grew up in the Church, and even before I started to have significant questions and doubts, there were two questions I could never quite get satisfactory answers for: Why can’t women have the priesthood, and why don’t we speak about our Heavenly Mother more? Even on my mission, I became uncomfortable and silent whenever the subjects would come up.
I once asked my beautiful, brilliant, and funny wife a series hypothetical question: How would she like it if I was the only one who communicated with our kids? What if they couldn’t talk to her at all? What if they couldn’t even know her name, or know what she did for them in their lives? When put this way, it feels condescending and terrible the way we treat our Eternal Mother.
I think the ordination of women would be the beginning of helping us understand who Heavenly Mother is. I think it would be the beginning of overcoming years of injustice. I think it would bring in new perspectives, new ideas, and a new freshness that we in the church have been denying ourselves for years, for no reason. I am so grateful for the people of Ordain Women, who have helped me to begin to understand this issue more than years of church teaching. Not only is female ordination a matter of justice and equality, I think it is the best decision the Church could possibly make. We need this. I believe women should be ordained.