Activist Kate Kelly was excommunicated Monday by Mormon church leaders. She told BuzzFeed Tuesday she still considers herself a Mormon but “can’t repent for being who I am.”
Kate Kelly, right, in Salt Lake City Tuesday.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Kelly — who up until recently was a Washington, D.C., area lawyer — gained widespread attention for founding and leading Ordain Women. The organization had pushed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons, to accept women into its all-male lay priesthood. As Kelly's group gained greater attention, she became among the most prominent members of a relatively liberal, loosely organized movement within Mormonism that generally sought greater acceptance of women, LGBT members, and those with doubts. Kelly called it "big tent" Mormonism Tuesday.
Kelly's excommunication Monday — which is the result of apostasy charges leveled against her by local leaders — represents one of the most significant developments not just for her but also for the internal struggle over the identity of her religion. During an interview Tuesday with BuzzFeed, she shared what she believes her ouster means for herself, and for Mormonism.
Kelly echoed statements by Ordain Women Tuesday, saying that she and her supporters do not plan to back off in their push for female admission to the Mormon priesthood.
Even more significantly, Kelly said Ordain Women has seen a 25% increase in registered supporters even since it was announced that she was facing excommunication. Kelly cited those numbers, as well as more than 1,000 letters of support submitted in the days before her excommunication, as evidence that the movement will survive. "People are not going to be silenced," she said. "Women are not going to stand down. Women are not going to stop asking difficult questions."
Kate Kelly with a group of about 200 feminist women are denied entrance to an all-male meeting of Mormon priesthood last year.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File
from BuzzFeed - Breaking http://ift.tt/1rwwMVP
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