Sonia Johnson and the ERA a contentious issue during presidency of Kimball

This essay was first published in April of 2010.

In “Lengthen Your Stride,” the biography of the Prophet Spencer W. Kimball’s tenure as LDS Church president, there is this anecdote: President Kimball, who in spring 1979 was being constantly called by Mormon dissenter Sonia Johnson, retreated to the foyer of the Church Office Building. He was observed by Relief Society President Barbara Smith, who asked him why he was working on papers in the foyer and not his office. The prophet admitted that he was trying to avoid Johnson’s calls, adding he didn’t want to lie when she was told he was not in his office.

Smith replied, “President, may I sit with you here for a while? Sonia’s after me too!”

It’s been more than three decades since Johnson was excommunicated from the LDS Church. She’s become an answer to a trivia game. But the controversy over the LDS Church’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment was a headache to church leaders, and particularly its leader, Kimball. In some ways it’s a lot like the uproar over the church’s support of a measure banning gay marriage in California.

The LDS Church actively opposed the ERA — which was steadily losing a battle to garner enough states to become part of the Constitution — for what it called “moral” reasons. Johnson, a lifetime Mormon from Cache County married and living in Virginia, became an active proponent of ERA.

According to “Lengthen Your Stride,” she engaged in a feisty debate with Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch while testifying on Capitol Hill. Johnson later helped start Mormons for ERA and persistently sought an interview with President Kimball.

Johnson claimed she wanted to know if the church’s opposition to the ERA was based on revelation or not. Kimball would not meet with her, believing it would accomplish nothing and that Johnson would manipulate what he would say to her. Johnson’s crusade made her famous. She became a symbol of feminist resentment against the Mormon Church. As she gained prominence, her rhetoric became more barbed. She urged, or suggested (depending on her or others’ interpretation) that people not invite LDS missionaries into their homes. She also referred to the LDS Church as a “savage misogyny.”

There’s no doubt that the LDS Church actively opposed the ERA. In 1978, a First Presidency letter read by bishops urged members to get engaged with other citizens to defeat the ERA. In a 1980 Church News editorial, the church expounded on its opposition. Later an insert in The Ensign was devoted to criticizing the ERA.

This is what the ERA actually said:
“Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”

It seems a mild two dozen or so words, but its interpretation caused a decade or more of fierce debate. In late 1979, Sonia Johnson was excommunicated. For several years afterward, the LDS Church was subject to a lot of activism against it as a result of its ERA stance, particularly after the deadline for its passage expired.

In “Lengthen Your Stride,” it is recalled, “In January 1981, a group of twenty representing NOW and Ex-Mormons for ERA gathered at the gates of the Ogden Temple and burned temple garments…” The National Organization For Women, which described the Mormon Church as a major opponent in the effort to ratify the ERA, sent missionaries door to door in Utah to petition President Kimball. It was common for protesters to vote against sustaining LDS Church leaders at general conferences, to picket and to fly banners over many church meetings.

The protests faded in the mid-1980s as the ERA diminished as an issue. Sonia Johnson ran for president under a fringe party banner. She wrote a biography, “From Housewife to Heretic,” that can still be found at used bookstores, as well as other small-press books.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Last years of LDS prophet Kimball’s life was an excruciating, fogged journey



I’ve written before on the excellent draft copy of “Lengthen Your Stride,” Ed Kimball’s fascinating look at the tenure of his father, Spencer W. Kimball, as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The section, Decline and Death, 1981 — 1985, is very painful to read because it provides details of the slow but persistent decline of President Kimball’s health that eventually robbed him of his voice, eyesight, his hearing, use of his body, and sometimes his mind.

Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet of my youth, and I loved the man even though I never met him. It is excruciating to read how he suffered. Although the church might frown on this phrase, I regard Kimball as a reformer. He ended the ban on priesthood for blacks and he was largely responsible for the growth of the LDS Church in Latin America. Although this is only my opinion, I don’t think President Kimball would have approved of the blanket scapegoating for society’s ills of many Hispanic illegals in this country.

Kimball began to decline in the summer of 1981. During that time he felt prompted to call the apostle Gordon B. Hinckley as a new, third counselor to the First Presidency. The calling was the beginning of Hinckley’s becoming the leader of the LDS Church although he would not become prophet for more than a decade.

In “Lengthen Your Stride,” Kimball’s personal secretary, D. Arthur Haycock, recalled this episode as a time that Kimball’s mind and body was strengthened by the Lord. “immediately afterward … the fog descended again,” Ed Kimball writes. In September 1981, Kimball suffered a subdural hematoma. There was a long hospitalization, and afterwards Kimball and his wife, Camilla, lived permanently with assistance in the top floor of the Hotel Utah. One of the earliest frustrations for Kimball was his loss of speech. Ed Kimball writes, “Sometimes he could speak fluently, but at other times when he tried to say one word another word that made no sense would come out. He was aware of the problem, and the frustration was so cruel that he simply lapsed into silence.”

During these long four years, Kimball was never unaware of what had happened to him. Depressed by his inability to work, he wondered aloud why the Lord would not take him. His illnesses made him irritable at times, and he snapped at Camilla, who was his age and also beset with health problems. At the same time, he was miserable without her. She dealt with the occasional stress by crying in the bathroom.

March 9, 1982, He spent the day at BYU for the dedication of the Spencer W. Kimball Tower. It was a rare late appearance, Later that year, on his birthday, Kimball slumped into unconsciousness in his family chair. He could not be revived for hours. Some thought he was close to death, but several hours later he revived. Although unable to talk clearly, he surprised many by recalling what was being said while he was “out.”

By Christmas 1982, “Spencer’s sight had deteriorated to the point that he could only see outlines. … His hearing was failing fast. He could not rest, and seldom slept soundly for more than an hour, even at night …,” writes Ed Kimball. It was a long three years before Kimball finally died, but he still stubbornly attended at least one session of the final conferences of his long life. He was wheeled to temple meetings of the general authorities once or twice a month. “Even that small degree of activity cheered him,” writes Ed Kimball.

Kimball was capable of exercising his authority at times. He strongly criticized an essay in a book by Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, arguing that what McConkie recalled as not being accurate and requesting that it be changed.

In late 1983, he almost died from internal bleeding, but recovered well enough for this interaction with wife, Camilla. Ed Kimball writes, “Then to Camilla, (Kimball said) “What will we do when they’re all gone?”

“She said, “We’ll go to bed.” She gave him a kiss. He responded, “Did you do that on purpose?” “Yes I did. Did you like it?” “Oh yes, I do.”

At one point, Kimball inquired as to whether he should be released as church president, but the consensus among church leaders was no. General authorities generally avoided providing specific answers as to how Spencer W. Kimball was doing the last years of his life.

This is what makes Ed Kimball’s draft book so fascinating. Most of it did not make the final published edition of “Lengthen Your Stride.”

Kimball’s body gave out in November 1985. There had long been instructions not to make strenuous efforts to keep him alive. He was more than a great prophet. He was a leader who moved the LDS Church in a positive way in how it was looked at by the rest of the world. There were few men his equal.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published on StandardBlogs