One Way to Stand for Truth and Righteousness

Recently I was dismayed to hear that a former LDS General Relief Society President, Elaine criticized the women's march that happened through the nation and the world in January after the inauguration.  While speaking to a group of LDS women, she praised them for being leaders in "contrast to those women who marched." She assumed that LDS women didn't march. "We were in a cab, and as I watched those women marching and yelling," Dalton went on to say, according to a report in the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, " ... behaving anything but ladylike and using language that was very unbefitting of daughters of God, my heart just sunk and I thought to myself, 'What would happen if all those women were marching and calling to the world for a return to virtue?' "

I grew up in the church. I loved serving young women and standing to repeat a motto that includes the words, "I will stand for truth and righteousness..."  Ironically as I participated in the march locally in Ogden, Utah--those words kept coming back to me. I will stand for truth. I will stand and more, even march for righteousness. Those words that I must have repeated aloud hundreds of times and in my mind hundreds more times. To me, standing for something means to defend it. How we choose to defend something we believe in can take many approaches. My approach has been "boots on the ground." Even though for an introvert this is way out of my comfort zone, it feels right to me. I've defended the rights of my LGBTQ friends in Pride marches. And I will continue to defend women in any way that I can. I'm sure Sister Elaine Dalton spoke from a place of misunderstanding rather than purposefully disparaging a diverse group of women, which included in every march around the world, LDS women. 

Dear Sister Dalton, 

Thank you for your countless hours of service on behalf of women (this is sincere--you've certainly given and continue to give your all for our church and for women.) My heart sunk recently when I heard what you said about those of us who chose to participate in solidarity for women and march with over a million others worldwide. You might be surprised to hear that one of the reasons I chose to march was to "call the world for a return to virtue." Virtue by definition means goodness, integrity, decency, honor, ethics, morality etc. I believe that if you had taken the time to get out of your cab and talked to some of the vulnerable and brave women marching you may have found out that their varied reasons were something that you would have supported and believed in. It doesn't take more than a casual observation of the news in the last year leading up to the election to see that decency has been eroded by arrogance and misogyny. Our current president is anything but virtuous in his treatment of women, regularly calling women who dare challenge him the b word and even sometimes the c word. He called Hillary nasty. He said a woman reporter would look pretty "on her knees." I can't even write those words as they are so offensive to me and others. The man bragged about assaulting women and grabbing them by the "pussy." Numerous women have confirmed his own admission. Many women who participated in pageants including our own Miss Utah said he would walk in the dressing room and kiss woman without asking. Need I go on? We were marching to denounce this kind of lewd and unvirtuous treatment and assumed ownership of women. As our own Sister Laurel Thatcher Ulrich a Pulitzer prize winner for history said, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." 

The march may have sounded like a group of loud misbehaved women, but we were standing for truth, equality, and a return to decency and kindness. And yes virtue. Next time Sister Dalton, I would welcome you to join us. I have a friend who will even crochet you a darling hat. 

Regards, Carole