New Seminary Teacher Requirements: Good News

I am in the “it is about time” and lots of thinking about how much of this is coming from pressure to change.

I’m glad for the changes. Better not to beat up the church for “being late” or making other backhanded statements that punish them for changing.

That’s true, Dark Jedi, but this is an important ideological change. Also important, IMO, because of something I wrote about it in Jan of 2012: http://www.wheatandtares.org/6579/institutional-freedom-vs-individual-rights/

I quoted from an OP on Exponent II in which a CES representative rather disingenuously defended the practice. Here’s the excerpt:

Question: Is it true that mothers may not be seminary teachers?

Answer: No, that is not true. Mothers of young children are discouraged from being seminary teachers.

Question: So CES does hire mothers to be seminary teachers?

Answer: CES will hire mothers whose children are all over 18 and whose children have all graduated from high school.

Question: What happens to a female seminary teacher who has a baby? Can she continue teaching seminary?

Answer: She stops teaching seminary when she has a baby.

Question: She is fired?

Answer: No. Female seminary teachers understand this when they are hired. They know that they will only work as seminary teachers until they have children.

Question: Do they have the option of continuing to teach when they become mothers?

Answer: They do not want to keep working full-time after they have children. They want to stay home with their children. (Yeah, because food on the table stops being a concern when you have kids).

Question: Doesn’t the Family Medical Leave Act require employers to allow mothers to return to work after maternity leave?

Answer: The Church has met all of the legal requirements to implement this policy.

What was insidious about the policy is that CES could hide behind ministerial privilege to avoid a discrimination suit (while very clearly discriminating). This exception (ministerial privilege) applies to religious employers who can demonstrate that protected class individuals (women, gay people, etc.) don’t qualify for these roles due to religious reasons (e.g. only priests are male). The courts mostly let church’s determine this without a lot of pushback. But CES’s use of ministerial privilege is especially egregious to those of us on the inside for three reasons: 1) women already do this work unpaid in early morning callings, 2) women preach in our congregations along with men, and 3) women serve missions and therefore are suitable representatives of the church. Basically, CES had to take the stance that a woman who works while she has any children in the home (between the ages of 0-18) is unworthy to minister (even though they do in other capacities within the church – the distinction here is that CES is paying them directly). Those are the grounds for barring them from paid positions in CES. This was not 100% true in other departments of the church, but CES was hard lining it. This represents a huge sea change, even though as a feminist, it’s very small beans (going from no wages to very low wages). I’ll keep my party horn in the drawer.

But a broader view of this shows a softening in the most zealous arm of the church. This is the same line of thinking that is constantly harping about the rights of religion to do what they want vs. individual rights (as I pointed out in the article). It’s behind the opposition to gay marriage. It’s a constant topic in that rag, the Deseret News. It’s an argument that evangelical allies of the church and the tea party can’t stop talking about. IMO, it’s the church’s worst instinct. I’m glad to see this minor erosion of it.

One small step for Ruth and Noami. One giant leap for Man tribe.

That’s fantastic! So happy that the church is starting to have some positive changes- it gives me hope for the future