Introduction and Welcome

Guest [00:00:00] Teach me to walk in the light of his love Teach me to pray to my Father above Teach me to know all the things that are right Teach me, teach me to walk in

John Dehlin [00:00:30] the light thank you for joining us again today on Mormon Stories Podcast. In the continuation of our series on women in the LDS Church today, we take a look back at one of the most important events in 20th century Mormon feminism that is the LDS Church's reactions to the United States government's Equal Rights Amendment or era in the 1970s.

John Dehlin [00:00:56] In this episode, Martha Sontag Bradley, author of Pedestals and Podiums, Utah Women, Religious Authority and Equal Rights, discusses her research into the LDS Church's reactions to the Equal Rights Amendment. Most LDS historians and feminists credit this amazing series of events as the major impetus for the Mormon feminist activism that emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s. We hope you enjoy Martha's version of this story.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] It should also be noted that the audio quality of the introduction to Martha's presentation is somewhat poor, but after the first two minutes it should improve dramatically. Finally, it should be noted that this presentation comes from the 2005 Northwest Sunstone Symposium held in Molly Bennion's home. If you appreciate this presentation, please consider subscribing or donating to sunstone today@sunstoneonline.com we hope you enjoy this presentation. Thanks for listening.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:01:59] My name is Tom Kimball. I'm the Marketing Director for Signature Books. Anyway, we'd like to welcome you out. I'd like to take a moment and introduce Marty. When Marty and I first started talking about this project, we didn't get along too well, did we? Weren't very happy with me.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:19] Anyway, I'm please to say that Marty and I have become good friends by way of introduction. Marty is a professor at the University of Utah at the College of Architecture and Planning. She reminded me that she has a full load what you're teaching a full load this semester.

Video Clip 1 [00:02:43] She's also the director of the Honors Program at the University of Utah and has been the recipient of the Distinguished Teachers Award and the Student Choice Award for Excellence in Teaching. She's also the author of several books. She's the author of Kidnapped from that the Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamous. She's the author of co author of 4 Zinas, which is a stunning piece of I believe didn't Dean Jessie call the documents found the most significant documents cache found in the 20th century. She was part of a study of that.

Video Clip 1 [00:03:29] She's also the author of A history of Kane County. She was the co editor of Dialogue and has been in Mormon Studies for a long time. And it's our privilege to hear from her about her new book, Pedestals and Utah Women, Religious Authority and Equal Rights.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:07] I should say it is true that when Tom and I first started talking about this book, it was clear to me he didn't really get why it was important. And I gave him a hard time about that for a long time. And he worked really hard to figure it out. And I think that one of the reasons why I now have quite a bit of respect for Tom is because of the way I watched him do that. I respect that. And it wasn't something that immediately he understood, but he made sure that he understood why it was important.

Video Clip 1 [00:04:38] I respect him for other reasons, not just because he came over to my way of thinking about the world, but I respected that and I appreciated very much his fine efforts. I'm happy to be here today. It's great to have an excuse to come up to Seattle to talk to you a little bit about this book. That took me a long time to write and to research and to think about.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:02] Really embarrassed. I've had so many people in the last few weeks ask me how long it takes me to write a book or how long did it take you to write that book? And it took me forever. I began work on this project in 1992, and I worked on it for a little while and I put it down. And then I did the Zyna book. I actually did the Kidnap book.

Video Clip 1 [00:05:25] I did actually three county histories. So I did all these things in between. And then I picked it up again about four and a half, five years ago and wrote it, pushed it through the editorial process and it's finally ready. We saw it for the first time on Thursday and I'm just giddy. I love the way it looks. I love the way it feels. But more importantly, I think this is an incredibly important story that I'm privileged to tell. So today I'm going to give you a really rapid run through the basic sort of skeletal structure of one of the campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment.

The LDS Church and the Equal Rights Amendment

Video Clip 1 [00:06:01] And that is the campaign that was conducted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And from talking with many of you, I know that some of you played a role in this campaign, at least had an opinion about the campaign. Certainly all of us were impacted by this very important part of our country's history. And I wanted to begin with five quotes.

Video Clip 1 [00:06:21] My students and I did more than 100 oral interviews with women who had been involved in both the International Women's Year Conferences and then the campaign itself. And Charlotte, I had to remind Charlotte that she was one of the women that was interviewed, and she's actually quoted several times in the book.

Video Clip 1 [00:06:40] So five, just sort of sample quotes. These interviews were amazingly rich. One of the things that I knew was, and this was in 1992, I applied for a research grant from BYU's Women's Research Institute. And I kept hearing over and over again women who had been involved in the decade of the 70s in these movements, who would say, this is the most important time in my life, or that was when this happened and changed my life forever.

Video Clip 1 [00:07:11] It was a watershed moment or series of moments for so many women. And I wanted to gather those stories and then I wanted to think about them and try and figure out what they all in combination, combination meant. So I'm going to begin with just five quotes, and then I'll begin with a narrative of this campaign.

Video Clip 1 [00:07:31] First of all, Marilyn Arnold, if you remember, she's a professor down at Brigham Young University. She said to go to Houston, and that's where the National IWI Conference was. Gave me a huge lift. What is it when you get together with a group of women, it's easier to talk to them for some reason or somehow there's a flavor, there's a sisterhood. And men probably feel that on athletic teams and other places. But women haven't had that so much. It's not quite the same as if when you're working together at a cause. Ramona Adams from the University of Utah. Well, I'd define a feminist as a person who believes that men and women should have equal rights, that there should be equality among them, and they should have the right to choose their roles in life.

Video Clip 1 [00:08:15] They shouldn't be designed and told what they should be. And that's really what the women's movement is all about. It's not about burning bras and getting women ahead. That's not what it's about. It's about equality and having the right to choose. And I'm 100% a feminist when you define it that way.

Video Clip 1 [00:08:32] Cheryl May Feminism to me has many dimensions, and it begins on a spiritual plane, I guess. I believe that women in the eternal perspective are equal in every respect, not just in their separate spheres, but in every respect in relation to their brothers, and that this is the only system that could be protected by a just God on a political, economic plane. That means that I also believe in this total equality in every area of life. It's an Equality that needs to be fought for, that has many, many dimensions that goes back so far and is widely practiced that it is woven into the fabric of our culture.

Video Clip 1 [00:09:11] Cynthia Bouchard, who's an activist in Salt Lake City, tells the story of when her five year old son Dylan asked one of his friends what his mother did. The kid kind of looked perplexed and Dylan could tell you exactly what he meant. So Dylan rephrased the question and said, you know, what does your mom do to help the world? And Bouchard's eyes teared up when she said, great. He thinks that I'm going out and helping the world and that that's what a feminist is.

Video Clip 1 [00:09:42] Elaine Clyde, if you remember, she was in the general board of the Relief Society. I happily call myself a feminist, but that's because I'm interested in equal rights. And the issues that I was most concerned about, as I thought about this before these political implications came along, were equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities in terms of education.

Video Clip 1 [00:10:04] Now, the reason I wanted to start with those five quotes is I really want to emphasize before I start telling my version of this story that there are a million different ways of looking at it, and this is only one angle, one point of view. I'm not trying to get you all to think the way I think about it or to advocate that any of you change your interpretation of this story, but this is the way I see this story, okay? There are many different ways of looking at it. I thought I would begin by telling you about my own involvement with the story of this book and invite you all to remember where you were during the 1970s and whether you remember any of the events that I'll describe.

The 1977 IWY Conference and Church Mobilization

Video Clip 1 [00:10:41] On July 20th, excuse me. June 24th, 1977, I got a call from my mother in law and she said that she had been asked by her Relief Society president to attend Utah's IWI conference in Salt Lake City, but that she didn't really want to do it and wondered if I would want to do it instead.

Video Clip 1 [00:10:59] She said she would babysit for the day. And I didn't hardly ever get a babysitter. My one son was 5 years old before we ever had a babysitter. So having a day to myself to do anything was big stuff. So I took her up on it and she reminded me that we had been told by our Relief Society presidents that if you went to the IWY conference, you should vote no on all of the national resolutions.

Video Clip 1 [00:11:22] So I went to the first day of the conference and I went to the workshop on Utah and Women's History. And I remember being so inspired by Maureen Erson Beecher and Jill Durer and the things that they talked about were the history of women, such as Eliza R. Snow and Zina Diantha Young and those sorts of very interesting, rich stories of our feminist ancestors from the 19th century. And I was just so inspired by that. I went to the session on Women in Politics and I remember Cheryl May that I quoted from was such an icon of female power and she's so eloquent and elegant and wonderful and I was so inspired by that.

Video Clip 1 [00:11:59] And then it came time for me to go to the voting booth and it was the first time I had read the national resolutions that had come out of the National Commission on the Status of Women that came up with this sort of national agenda for what needed to be changed for women. And as I read down through those issues and you at least I don't care if you buy the book, but you should buy the book. I'm sorry, Tom, but look in the appendix, because there was the ballot and then there's the total vote on the items on the ballot. And there were such issues as should there be better representation of women in national art galleries.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:12:36] Well, yeah, I mean, most of them for me were like no brainers. I remember one was I had little kids and so I was acutely aware of the importance of childcare and improving the quality of child care just seemed like such a no brainer to me. I couldn't imagine voting no on it. And the longer I stood and read those, tears started to roll down my cheeks. And I remember, and you know, I have had people make fun of me for saying this, but for me, this was a defining moment. And I didn't make it more political and grand than that, but I knew that I didn't know very much and, and I knew that it was about time I got off my duff and started finding out about the issues that were important in our country and having my own opinion, making my own decisions.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:13:22] For me, voting against equal rights amendment or against abortion, that was no big deal because that was so much a part of the culture in our church during that time period. But the other issues in the national revolutions, to me, and especially looking back in hindsight, it almost seems comical that we were encouraged to vote no just simply because it was this agenda that came out of the National Commission.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:13:46] So that's 1977. Very young mother, young kids went to graduate school and I got a job a number of years later. A decade later, Actually, exactly at byu. And I was teaching in the history department at Brigham Young University.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:14:02] And I applied and I got this resource research grant to do oral interviews with women who had gone to the IWI conference. And I think I sort of wanted to know if other people had the same reaction to it as me. That might have been a motive. But I had heard so many people say that this was an important event in their lives. So we did these interviews and I wrote up a paper which I presented at a conference that was staged at BYU on the history of Mormon Relief Society. And the other person who presented a paper with me presented one on Mormon feminism.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:14:34] But after we were finished and we opened for questions, the most incredible thing happened. And I sort of briefly described this in my introduction, but women stood up and started shouting at each other, Shouting. When someone else would ask a question, someone would stand up across the room and shout criticism about their viewpoint. It was the most uncivil discourse that I had ever witnessed. And certainly at a conference, you never treat people that way. It was just unheard of. But we heard later that people had been assigned to infiltrate that session and disrupt it.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:15:09] And so that was pretty nasty experience with this story. This story had become a sort of hot potato in my life. And every time I brought it up again, I got burned by it. So it was easy for me to put that project aside for a number of years. And then I waited six, seven years before I picked it up again and finished writing this book.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:15:31] Ironically, I can relate to both points of view on both sides of the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment. I spent 18 years as a stay at home mother. I have six children. And then the next several years up until the present as a professor. And my sense of a woman's life is that our lives are rich with choices complex, with competing pools on our time and our energy, but also that our lives can hold the richest rewards.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:16:02] It was also true that the LDS Church's campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment was only one of many. The decade of the 1970s and the early 1980s was, as many of you know, when the Christian Right emerged as a religious political entity of significance in this country.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:16:22] In important ways, the LDS Church's campaign mirrored the efforts of others, of Protestant religious groups, of conservative political action committees, and special interest organizations that formed to fight the era and then transferred their attention and focus to other issues on the American political landscape. And we still see them combating certain issues today, most recently the same sex marriage issues.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:16:48] I'm not anywhere in my presentation today, nor Do I do this in my book, say that this campaign was wrong, but what I try to do instead is understand how it worked and how it impacted the lives of the women who were involved. And then finally, the long term implications of this campaign on the women's movement more generally.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:17:08] In large measure, I found that this was a war of words. But they were words that ripped apart women's lives, threatened to destroy their self respect or dignity, and that divided women from each other in profoundly important and meaningful ways. Originally motivated by fear of change, one deep and weighty transformation that marked this campaign was that women became afraid of other women rather than searching for common ground. This was a time when women pulled apart, believed the rhetoric of suspicion and alarm, and contributed to the dichotomies that separated feminists and more traditional women into camps and rendered them powerless at reaching reconciliation.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:17:52] Between 1972 and 1982, supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment lobbied, marched, rallied, petition, petitioned, picketed, went on hunger strikes and committed acts of civil disobedience. Opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, not long after the era traveled through the Congress in 1972, engaged in a battle that pulled them out of their traditional roles as housewives and mothers and put them in conferences, letter writing and telephone call making campaigns. A grassroots campaign designed to put down the aspirations of the feminist movement and its supporters and restore America to the way it was before all this trouble began.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:18:34] It is probable that many of the women involved were not aware of how important their place was in the long historical continuum of women's struggle for constitutional equality in the United States, or how important the history they were making really was.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:18:50] The stories of Mormon women's involvement in the suffrage movement have been told often and often with detail. In fact, we like to think of our 19th century predecessors as feminists, as radicals, definitely more powerful than women of later generations.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:19:05] Certainly they were empowered and empowered differently because of the unique conditions of the community building endeavor they participated in in the absence of their husbands, if they were polygamous or on missions, and other exigencies of the frontier experience. And in fact, there are two chapters in the Forzaino's book that deal with this very topic.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:19:25] In the 1960s, over a century after the fight to end slavery that fostered the first wave of the women's rights movement, the civil rights battles of another generation provided an impetus for the second wave of feminism. Women organized to demand their birthright as citizens and persons, and the Equal Rights Amendment, rather than the right to vote, became the central symbol of the struggle.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:19:48] Periodically during this presentation, I'M going to give you some little short snippets or snapshots of what was going on in the country more generally during the Same time period, 1963, powerful American female icon and social activist Eleanor Roosevelt died. And perhaps the single most influential book in the women's movement of this year, Betty Friedan's the Feminist Mystique, voiced the angst of millions of American women.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:20:16] In 1966, Betty Friedan and a number of other women organized the National Organization of Women, which would become known as now. After the third National Conference on the Commission on the Status of Women articulated concern about whether Title VII sex discrimination procedures would be effectively enforced.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:20:36] Now, ambivalence over the necessity for the Equal Rights Amendment marked the movement into this region revolutionary era of social change of the 1960s. Many believed that equality was already guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, an idea that was reinforced in 1963 by the President's Commission on the Status of Women, which concluded that an Equal Rights amendment was redundant because those sorts of things were already taken care of by the 14th and 15th Amendments.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:21:04] Increasingly, however, national polls indicated that feminists believed in the necessity of an era. And by 1970 the idea had caught the fancy of Presidents Johnson and Nixon, the President's Task Force on the Status of Women and the Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:21:24] Numerous unions and the Women's Bureau continued to support the notion of protective legislation, which is a whole other idea about how to take care of the rights of Women. In 1970, Kate Millett's book Sexual Politics presented an important analysis of women's position in relationship to political and actual power. And then finally in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment passed the United States Senate and then the House of Representatives and this new proposed 27th amendment to the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:21:59] Like the 19th Amendment before it, the ERA barreled out of the Congress getting 22 of the necessary 38 states ratifications in the first year. But as it had done for every amendment after Prohibition, with the exception of the 19th Amendment, which is the suffrage amendment, Congress placed a seven year deadline on the ratification process, which is one of the complications.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:22:23] The pace slowed as opposite began to organize only eight ratifications in 1973, three more in 74, one in 75 and none in 76. So what were the two sides of the battle and what was it that they were representing? And then more importantly, who fought the fight?

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:22:42] Arguments by ERA opponents such as Phyllis Shafley. And some of you may remember that she was the right wing leader of The Eagle Forum. Her group, STOP era, was probably the single most important organization that put down the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Anti ERA organizers claimed that the Equal Rights Amendment would deny women's right to be supported by her husband. Privacy rights would be overturned, women would be sent into combat, and abortion rights and homosexual marriages would be upheld. Opponents surfaced from from other very traditional sectors as well. States rights advocates lined up against the Equal Rights Amendment and described it as a federal power grab.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:23:27] Business interests such as the insurance industry opposed a measure they believed would cost them big money. Opposition to the ERA was also organized by fundamentalist religious groups such as the Catholics, and there were Jewish organizations that supported it as well. The opposition Pro ERA advocacy was led by now and a group called ER America, a coalition that included members from 80 other mainstream organizations.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:23:55] Somewhere during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the ERA became a sort of rallying cry for feminists, but in a way that was different for each group or each premutation of the women's movement. In the 1970s, feminism was never a monolith, but encompassed instead a range of attitudes and beliefs from extreme to moderation.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:24:17] Most, however, would not assert that ERA would be a panacea for all social ills, but would instead describe it as a powerful symbol, a symbol of the country's concern for the position of women. Furthermore, it was often mentioned that this would send a message to local governments.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:24:35] States, counties and cities should pass legislation that would protect the interests of women. It became then, in the process, symbolic of the great potential of equality. But opponents believed the same thing, and in fact, disbelief was at the root of the problem between the two sides. Both groups believed that the ERA would change the lives of women as they knew them, particularly the traditional concept of the family, which mandated separate roles for men and women.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:25:06] 1970 was the same year that marked the death of Alice Paul, who, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony before her, never saw the Constitution amended to include the equality of rights she'd worked for all her life.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:25:22] Alice Paul first introduced the era in December of 1920. And this is how it Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:25:40] Despite the massive lobbying efforts, petitions, countdown rallies, walkathons, fundraisers, and hunger strikes and other acts of civil disobedience, ERA did not succeed in meeting the number of required state ratifications before its deadline. When the ERA passed through both the House and the Senate in 1972, it seemed like a Done deal. And interestingly enough, the language was pretty much the Same as in 1923.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:26:09] Most would have believed that it was virtually impossible to defeat it at that point in time. It passed through the Senate with a vote of 84. 8. And ratification seemed to be a natural offspring of the radical revolutions of the 1960s, which included, if you remember, the student revolt, the push for civil rights. The subsequent Cultural Revolution signaled an intolerance of traditional ways of doing things. The past seemed to be rejected emphatically, creating a sort of vacuum ready for transformation. The National Organization of Women published a pamphlet which gave captured the spirit of enthusiasm for progress. It was called Revolution the Time is Now. It is also intriguing that the momentum for ERA came with the end of the war in Vietnam.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:26:56] A sublimation which portended a conservative backlash opposed to socioeconomic reforms. A careful examination of the history of the United States demonstrates that with revolutions come counter revolutions. And maybe it was inevitable that a conservative backlash would come in the wake of success with ERA when it did, the fury and the shape of its force would throw feminists and politicians off balance, fumbling for new strategies to push forward the Equal Rights Amendment.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:27:27] For these opponents to what feminism pretended for America, the women's movement and the ideal of womanhood it promoted threatened the destruction of the most fundamental American institution institution, which was the family. I forgot to show you this. This was 1968 and it was an article that appeared in the Improvement era. And this is me.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:27:50] The title of the article is what's a Girl Good For? And I'm going to have to turn around and I want you to just think about the language and what it's suggesting girls are good for. This campaign comes out of that era. I forgot that. I just think it's so funny.

Legislative Timeline and Church Opposition Tactics

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:28:07] So 1972 is the year of equal employment opportunity act. Remember 1972. That's when title IX was passed. And that was about bringing funding into high schools. Public schools should have equal funding for male and female athletic opportunities. In 1972, both the Democratic and Republican parties included the ERA on their platforms. So this was a bipartisan issue at that time period. 1973 Roe vs Wade 1973 was the year that Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in straight sets in the battle of the sexes tennis match.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:28:50] So the same year that passed through the Congress, the ERA was easily ratified in 22 states. Hawaii was first as of December 1972. The bipartisan action of these state legislators resulted in affirmative action. And LDS legislators voted for the ERA in Hawaii, in Idaho, in Colorado. And in California, where Mormons had significant percentages of the populations. In states without Mormon representation in their legislatures, rank and file Mormons encouraged ERA ratification, especially in Maryland, where Belt Route Mormons were prominent near the nation's capital, and in Massachusetts, where there was a thriving Mormon intellectual community. In the Boston area, Idaho ratified the ERA in a landslide vote of 58, five in the House and 31 to four in the state Senate, with an aye vote of nearly every legislator from the Mormon counties of southeastern Idaho.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:29:48] Even though the Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified in Utah in 1973 by 18 votes, it was most likely that it would succeed the next time it came up in 1975. By then, the political scene had changed significantly. In fact, eight women, the most in Utah's history, had been elected to the legislature, and a Mormon bishop, a man named Byron Fisher, was the sponsor of the bill, and 30 out of the 38 votes were declared for certain in support.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:30:18] But two years after the Congress passed the ERA, the Mormon Church took an official public stance on the issue. Before this time, there was absolutely no indication that the Church would put its resources behind a campaign against era.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:30:31] Instead, it was apparent by that time that nationally many Mormons supported ERA and that ratification seemed to be be a done deal. But it was not. The effect of the LDS Church's campaign was key in sealing its demise. The campaign originated with the Special Affairs Committee.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:30:50] One version or another of the Special Affairs Committee had been in evidence periodically since the 1940s, when it was used to conduct surveillance on the fundamentalists associated with Joseph Musser, John Barlow, and Rulon allred. But in 1974, the church organized the committee's efforts in response to the perceived threats posed by the era.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:31:10] At first an information gathering entity and quickly a group that formulated public policy. Members of the group included Gordon B. Hinckley, James Faust, and Neal Maxwell, who were all and are well respected members of our church hierarchy. Organized a month after a Deseret News poll which indicated substantial support in Utah for the amendment, the Special Affairs Committee focused its energies on defeating the era.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:31:38] The men in the group, general authorities, each instructed the head of the Relief Society, who was then Barbara Smith, on what to say in the first public presentation against era, which she gave to students at the LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah to initiate the campaign.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:31:56] She said, it is my considered judgment that the Equal Rights Amendment is not the way. Once it is passed, the enforcement will demand an undeviating approach which will create endless problems for an already troubled society. Initially, the church pushed Barbara Smith, the president of the Relief Society, forward. Perhaps seeing the importance of putting a female face behind the Church's position, Letting a woman be the spokesperson for the church, laying the issues before audiences made good sense. But at the same time, the Special Affairs Committee helped define the way the story would be told, and policy came from the committee itself.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:32:33] In January 1975, the campaign had begun and the LDS Church moved toward working for the defeat of Utah's ratification for ERA In Utah. This included an official editorial which appeared in the Church News section of the Deseret News, appearing without citing an author. It's one widely assumed that Mark Peterson wrote the essay in opposition to ratification.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:32:57] The Herald Journal, Logan's newspaper, predicted that this position sealed the doom of the amendment in the state. Before the church leaders came out in opposition, it seemed likely that our ERA would pass through the legislature as I said before, but the shift of pro ratification with the shift of pro into with the shift of pro ratification, Mormon legislators began. Not long after the statement, many changed positions, notably responding to their leadership's position on this political issue.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:33:29] As late as January 4, President Kimball declined to comment about the impending issue because for him it was a political issue. Within a week, the Church News published an editorial that voiced opposition to the era. This editorial impact of the political climate despite the tentative nature of the statement and the fact that the First Presidency had not put its full force behind it as of yet, while it was not itself a statement of official policy, it was just short of it because of its position in the Church News. Letters to the editor that appeared in the local papers in the weeks after showed a general malaise or ambivalence among those who had read it.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:34:10] But it did persuade or at least cast a shadow over the Utah legislature. By February 18, 1975, which was the day of the vote, and I have a picture of a demonstration on the front steps of the State Capitol, on the front of the book at the bottom.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:34:26] The vote ended up being 54, 21 and against the Utah politician who originally sponsored the bill. Byron Fisher, was a Mormon bishop who changed his own position and voted against the bill he had promoted. He said, it is my church and as a bishop I'm not going to vote against its wishes.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:34:48] The local victory was not enough. By the fall of 1976, 34 states had successfully ratified the amendment, which meant that only four more states had to support it for the proposal to become a part of constitutional law, a fact that alarmed many Mormon leaders and seemed justification for a major scale offensive waged not only in Utah, but outside the state as well. A virtual flood of speeches, pamphlets, newsletters and informal literature promulgated the ideas throughout the Church after the First Presidency statement. Apostle Boyd Packer, for example, gave a very important speech in Idaho. In Idaho, they were trying to rescind ratification, and it really became a very important legal issue.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:35:34] And he more completely articulated the Church's position after that very brief public statement. And he really laid out the rhetorical arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment. And then, if you remember, Rex Lee was asked to write a pamphlet, and that became, in legal rhetoric, the more sophisticated, justified justification for it. And each of those two very important presentations laid out a sort of parade of horrors that always talked about homosexual marriages, single sex, bathrooms, and the draft as the three most alarming potential things that would result.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:36:10] This was the beginning of what one author has described as an overt campaign that played out publicly to convince members of the Church and public policy makers that ratification was a big mistake for the United States. At the same time, it was also the beginning of an official covert campaign, the success of which depended in large measure on keeping it quiet, subterranean. In some ways, this is also a series of activities that were plenty public. If you attended a ward, there was no doubt where the Church stood, what its people should do, and what was the design result. The campaign can be understood in part by considering these kinds of political activities in states which hadn't ratified during the first five years, and I'll tell you briefly about that.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:36:58] Moreover, the issue of the distinction between the moral and political issues raised, excuse me, used by the Mormon Church as the divining rod directed them into certain battles and not others, was, in my mind, sort of problem, problematic. It certainly allowed the Church to pick and choose with no apparent consistency other than the definition attached to a particular issue by a particular leader. For the two decades before this point, this had happened upon repeated instances.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:37:26] For instance, during 1964, 65, certain black leaders attempted to pressure the Church into taking a stance on civil rights. But they refused to do so at that point, saying it was a political political rather than a moral issue.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:37:39] Although there was no certain criteria for distinguishing between moral and political issues, it depended on the judgment of the church leaders involved at any given moment in time. The organizational structure of the coalitions that were organized among members of the Church as citizens, coalitions to fight ratification on state level, mirrored the church structure itself.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:38:03] The official statement originated with the First Presidency, which is the first tier of organizational authority and power. The instruction to form groups or coalitions came from the Special Affairs Committee, which would be the next level, and with apostles Hinckley, Faust and Maxwell, these men set into action the General Relief Society president of the Church's women, who upon repeated occasions reminded women of the success significance of these political activities. Barbara Smith, for example, instructed women on the motivation behind the distribution of literature, the methods for contacting legislative leaders, and encouraged the use of the Relief Society membership itself for the recruitment of workers.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:38:44] The reiteration of the importance of focusing only on moral rather than political issues again justified the connection of the Church's resources to this effort. The hierarchical structure of the coalition activities in Virginia, in Missouri, in Nevada, and other states again that had not yet ratified mimicked the latter of the LDS Church itself. Direction, authority, power was top down, which proved to be an effective strategy for mobilizing the huge political army at the membership level of the Church.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:39:16] Thus mobilized, Mormon men and women fought the most easily distinguishable target, the Equal Rights Amendment. At the same time that they struck at abortion, pornography, drugs, homosexuality, sex education was a big one and sexual perversion, a sweeping landscape of social change ripe for reversal. Thus organized, the confusion between what was political and what was religious seemed to become irrelevant. Their leaders had called the meetings, had presented the call couched in religious terms, and the Mormon people then responded to the instruction in the same way they would have if they had been asked to work at the welfare center or to plan a word dinner.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:39:55] We understood the hierarchical organizational structure, our place in it, and perhaps more important, we understood what was expected of them when their leaders had spoken. The speech about the origins of the involvement of many key figures loosened up considerably in public debates or speeches that played out over the next few months. After one debate in Virginia, for example, the women in the audience were told that the leaders of the LDS Citizens Coalition against the Equal Rights Amendment had been called to their positions and even set apart, you know, those concepts are religious concepts that give a heightened significance to that kind of involvement. At the original meeting of the LDS Coalition, regional representative Julian Lowe said he had received a special priesthood blessing from the Stake Presidency for this work.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:40:47] Local groups functioned under the assumption that if the instruction to be involved in the political action committee came from President Kimball or from the apostles of the Church, then all the activities in the process had the tacit approval of the President.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:41:01] A year after the first editorial, on October 22, 1976, the first presidency formalized their opposition with an official statement against ratification. It voiced the fear that ERA could indeed bring them far more restraints and repressions. We fear it will even stifle many God given feminine instincts.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:41:23] Following not long after, Ezra Taft Benson, as President of the quorum of the 12, wrote to all mission presidents and stake presidents in a supplemental letter dated December 29, which said, as the Equal Rights Amendment issue is activated in some states, we suggest that you urge members as citizens of this great nation to join others in efforts to defeat the era.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:41:46] The statement also used characteristic language that articulated the position of women in the Mormon world. From the very first, Mormonism had affirmed the acceptance role of women within our society. It noted also that the Relief Society was first organized as a companion to male priesthood.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:42:05] Women in Utah were among the first to receive the vote and demanding further rights might stifle many God given feminine instincts. Again that same phrase and nullify many accumulated benefits to women in their present statuses. The ERA would fail to recognize inherent emotional and biological differences between men and women. And then that theme of differences, it runs through all of the literature from that point forward. And when they talk about differences, they are inviolable and God given.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:42:36] And that becomes a sort of central rhetorical position from that point forward. But perhaps as important in terms of this political environment, this belief that there was something that marked the Mormons from others, it became a sort of boundary between Mormon men and women and outsiders. This belief, furthermore, established the Church as the defenders of families, of motherhood and of the right of a woman to be protected.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:43:03] Foreign and seemingly unbelievable to some feminists, this viewpoint was nevertheless a great comfort and the rock on which many women chose to live. By January 1977, 35 states had ratified each and the country was only three states short of ratification.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:43:21] At that point, the opponents engaged in a variety of tactics to slow down the process and stop it wherever they could. Local campaigns were initiated in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia. That's the most famous one that we were talking about at lunch. Fighting to elect candidates who would vote against the amendment. This was a big part of the campaign to raise money for the fight in other states, which is what they did in California. The money they raised in California they sent to Florida to dominate IWY conferences to raise public awareness of the dangers the ERA presented.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:44:03] The campaign took on many forms and shapes and depended on local issues and support support. In Idaho, for example, the LDS campaign focused on rescinding ratification. As I said, similar efforts were supported in Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee. Preferable to fighting reversal, however, with successful opposition to ratification in the first place. But regardless whether the fight was against Ratification or for cancellation. The tactics were the same. Letter writing campaigns, mass attendance at mass meetings and circulation of literature using the language of fear and suspicion. In fact, the uniformity of the campaign, the tactics used in state after state speaks to the centralized direction of the battle.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:44:50] The Special Affairs Committee functioned as a sort of pentagon, duplicating the successful anti era tactics in states outside of Utah. On across the country. Joining with other ecumenical groups such as the Catholics, organizations that originated in the Christian Rite, the John Birch Society and other conservative political action groups helped make a successful campaign. And it was successful in states that had a disproportionate number of Mormons. Interestingly enough, in Missouri, for example, 1,300 Mormon women came out to demonstrate against ratification in a state that had fewer than 1% Mormon in the total population.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:45:32] 1977 was the year of the National Women's Year Conference held in Houston, Texas, that had more than 20,000 delegates and that adopted the National Plan of action. During 1977, Mormons dominated many of the state International Women's Year Conferences.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:45:50] In Utah, for example, 14,000 women attended a conference that had planned for 25 persons. And just this huge explosion of women who came out in droves to vote against the national agenda, they voted. We voted overwhelmingly against every one of the national resolutions. Utah was one of the few states that rejected categorically what they considered to be the feminist agenda of the national commission that promised President Ford had created to run International Women's Year. Mormon women dominated the conferences in Hawaii and New York State. Interestingly enough, in Albany, in Iowa, in Idaho and in Arizona, Mormons exceeded higher voter turnouts outside of Utah and ERA referendums.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:46:35] And this was especially true in Nevada. Some estimated that as many as 90% of eligible Mormon voters sometimes showed up in opposition to ratification. In each state, the procedure was somewhat the same. Civic anti era groups of Mormon women were organized by regional representatives. These men acted with the direction of Gordon B. Hinckley as the chair of the Special Affairs Committee at LDS Church headquarters, a clear demarcation of priesthood authority that stretched from Salt Lake City to wherever the fight needed to be fought. Local groups functioned under the assumption that if the instruction to be involved in political action came from President Kimball or from the Apostle of the Church, it was their righteous obligation to obey.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:47:24] At a key organizational meeting held in Salt Lake City for leaders from Missouri, Illinois, Virginia and from across the country, they laid out policy and procedures. And this was in 1978, they said that people first of all should not be set apart for the work that they should not use LDs in the title of the organization, that there should always be citizen groups, that church buildings may be used for ERA education.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:47:50] And that church meetings are appropriate forums for discussing era. And that they should not endorse political candidates, but instead publish material about their voting records. And that is not something that in most of the cases was actually obeyed. One way to deviate from past policy was in the earlier statement by Benson to stake and mission presidents. Please keep in mind that church buildings and organizations are not to be used for this or any other political or legislative purposes since the 1960s. As specified in the front page announcement of the statement of the first president and the Deseret news appearing on August 1962. This policy varied after the extension of the deadline for ratification.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:48:34] In 1978. They got the extension for ratification extended to 1982. And that was to just give them a little bit more time to get these last three states to ratify. Orrin Hatch inserted into the Senate hearing on extension the LDS Church's official policy about the Equal Rights Amendment. So it's part of the national documentation on this. 1978 was when Sonia Johnson testified before the Senate subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. And this is when Orrin Hatch inserted that policy into the record.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:49:15] And another official policy came out in. In August of 1978. And this is a little bit of the language. We believe ERA is a moral issue. We express confidence that this nation is sufficiently strong and fair to be able to resolve problems of inequality without undermining our most basic institution, the family. How am I doing on time? Okay, great. I don't have to talk so fast. Okay. As the official voice of the Church.

Aftermath, Legacy, and Audience Discussion

Tom Kimball [00:49:50] Okay, good.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:49:51] Thank you. As the official voice. Now we can get back to my regular pace. We're right on track. Okay. So, as the official voice of the Church, the Ensign published a series of articles clarifying the Church's position. Speeches given by church leaders in different locations against ratification and official policy. Speaking statements that left no room for interpretation. Bishops, stake presidents, teachers and other women read them in classes, interpreted them in private. In addition, official press packages were distributed widely to local newspapers, television personalities and other individuals in the media. In March 1980, some of you may remember receiving the Church and the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:50:35] It was a really beautiful gray publication that was on real fancy card stock. There is a distinct inconsistency between some public statements of policies and the way church systems and membership were used to sway political opinion. Ward Bishop Ricks instructed ward members not to use church facilities for meetings for political purposes. Yet in the fall of 1978, Ward newsletters repeatedly called for political participation and attendance at meetings held in church buildings.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:51:07] In 1979, Sonia Johnson was excommunicated for various accusations. 1979 on December 18, former Michigan Governor General George Romney said in a Detroit News article that the Equal Rights Amendment had attracted moral perverts who want to undermine the family.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:51:27] Joining with other anti ERA groups was a logical way of expanding on the effective campaign that was being waged by the LDS Church, fortified by their association in terms of shared literature, enthusiasm and focus. This also had the incidental effect of making it easier for Mormon anti era forces to blend in as members of citizen groups. While distributing literature at the state capitol or engaging in letter writing campaigns, Mormon were careful to present themselves as private citizens, first acting as such rather than saints mobilized by a prophet. As a result, it appeared as if there was a spontaneous massive groundswell of populous antipathy for era.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:52:12] It was precisely in states with small Mormon populations, where legislators were unaware of Mormon influence, that this strategy was the very most true effective because it was more likely to be interpreted as authentic popular opposition. Thus, small minorities of Mormons exerted disproportionate influence over the fate of VRA in Virginia, in Missouri, in Florida, in Illinois and North Carolina. The success of the movement depended on the anonymity of the group. As individuals, their points of view were more persuasive. Responding as common citizens, acting as individuals, individuals was more fully in line with the obligation elected officials had to respond to the desires of their constituencies, not the political power of institutions.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:52:57] Money that was raised in one state was then used in another, which for the campaign in Florida was particularly important. Approximately 26,000 of the 31,000 raised by families I can't remember what this fact families against. I'm sorry, I'm having a brain freeze on it.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:53:22] This organization that was raising money in California and then sending it to Florida. What is more interesting is that while 75% of the donations came from Mormons, 94% came from California. Clearly, the national campaign was integrated, based on a network moved by church headquarters in Salt Lake City and designed to fight ratification whether the victory was linked to fact funds or not. Julian Lowe, who was the regional representative over the campaign in Florida, said that it helped circulate funds as an activity of the church in a way of changing the political course of things.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:54:00] This underestimated the enormous benefit it was to the movement to have the backing of the powerful structure of the movement Mormon Church. And it goes into that really interesting layering of the campaign. And you really can't describe it entirely as a subterranean campaign or an overt campaign because again, if you were in a ward, you knew everything about it. You saw publications that described it. So it wasn't secretive in that way. It was just sort of layered. The effective use of citizen groups made the critical difference. These groups produced literature, established the ideological tests of the appropriateness of legislative candidates, and mobilized voters among their membership.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:54:39] Because both groups had such highly elaborate and formal organizational networks, these churches could easily mobilize resources in terms of workers, literature and influence. Dallin Oaks was part of the controversy. In 1978, he officially protested the repressive tactics of national organizations that were boycotting Utah and Nevada for not ratifying era. I don't know if any of you belong to any national organizations that refused to hold their national conventions in Utah or Nevada during this time period, but it was a huge statement and it was felt.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:55:16] The discourse surrounding era, for those who most feared its ratification, represented a particular view towards women, men and the family. Traditional domestic roles were to be protected because of the difference between men and women. Upsetting the balance could lead to social chaos and disruption. Moreover, the masculine man and the feminine woman had specific roles in the family that should be preserved. Religion, law and education should support this basis for stable society.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:55:47] Supporters of ERA saw instead of diversity trouble. They saw the potential for change that endangered the family and endangered the society itself. A seemingly irreconcilable face off. The campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment and the war between feminists and homemakers was one fought with words, with ideas and powerful imagery designed to persuade.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:56:12] Rhetorical discourse, as every good English teacher knows, is generated in response to a rhetorical situation. It is in that extraordinarily pragmatic it seeks a desired result. In fact, in most basic ways it exists to accomplish something very specific. This was certainly true with the rhetoric used by the anti ERA workers and the proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment. In combination, this rhetoric created a complex rhetorical situation which shifted from you to year. With political ties or personalities to varying degrees during the decades struggle for eradication, the ERA became the most potent of symbols. The potential for fear and anxiety among many American women who believed the feminists wanted to change everything they valued.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:56:59] Both sides saw pervasive injustices. Both saw that they had much to lose and much to gain. In the course, a massive multi lever level media debate ensued. Phyllis Shafley's Eagle Forum organization found a compatible ally in the Mormon Church and fostered the relationship with shared literature visiting lectures at events and a series of meetings to establish friendships. In some instances, the forum became a defender of a church they perceived as being under siege by the forces of evil embodied in the proponents of equal rights.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:57:34] The Equal Rights Amendment proved to be the fodder for this coalition that formed the new Christian Right in the early 1970s. Many women who had never before been involved in politics played critical roles in this new conservative political movement. Developing virtually overnight, this new social movement exhibited an impressive ability to raise money to establish strong organizations that depended on mass grassroots support and tactics that centered on elected officials.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:58:03] In this, the ERA was not the only issue addressed, but worked like a sort of flypaper, attracting and attaching to a variety of issues that seemed to impact the lives of women. As a group, they aroused the emotion, indignation and dedication of these new political activists. Opponents to ERA positioned them with traditional values that had long been at the center of the American American Dream. The family, motherhood, religion and the home.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:58:30] Also, in the midst of the Cold War, anti communism and the prominence of an all male fighting force framed their worldview. Proponents of the opposite side had to find more abstract values for the core of their argument. Equality, justice, fairness, all were mutually agreed upon and in many ways were basic American values as well. Benefits could be linked to either point of view.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:58:56] Potential problems paled in comparison to the predicted outcomes of the political upheaval both sides predicted. Even though as a church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was conservative during the 20th century, church leadership increased the fervor of their criticism of women's liberation during the 70s and 80s, on the heels of a counter revolution of the 60s. Drugs, free love, hippies and rock and roll. More important, a rejection of traditional values. Equal rights took on new meaning, absorbing the reflected light of other social changes of the era, like guilt by association. Equity sounded dangerous because it threatened to change time honored values and ways of life based on theology for the LDS people.

Martha Sontag Bradley [00:59:43] Why did such resistance arise to the idea of an amendment that sought to remedy injustices long experienced by American women? Why would an organized coalition engage in such a vigorous and exhaustive campaign against ratification? The ERA represented a symbolic challenge to traditional gender roles that spanned historical boundaries and ran across religious and cultural cultural lines. This challenge, profound in the way it might potentially alter the lives of men and women, had a huge potential for creating fear and anxiety. The campaign, the ripe fight you might call it, was largely a rhetorical battle fought with words, but words nevertheless that had a profound impact on the lives of all American women.

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:00:31] It was a battle no one won. We with even still an undecided outcome. So thank you very much. So do you have any questions? Yes Molly, I have one.

Tom Kimball [01:00:52] Did you find any evidence directly ever regretted that pamphlet?

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:00:56] Because shares of fairy.

Tom Kimball [01:01:04] Was that he had a member of

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:01:06] lawfully prepare that for him didn't pay any attention to it and then I never heard whether he know I've never heard. And by the time I started working on this project Rexley had died. Interestingly enough in the in 1993 when I had that big ruckus at that conference where we presented the papers, there were some women from the John Burr Society who had been assigned to go to our meeting and disrupt it that then wrote letters to Rex Lee complaining that these feminist women had been paid tithing dollars to work at byu. And I had to go in and talk with Rex Lee about it.

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:01:47] And he was such deep, dear, smart, warm hearted man and he apologized to me that we had to have this conversation and it was a very interesting thing. But we didn't talk about the Equal Rights Amendment at all. I wish I had in hindsight.

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:02:25] But what that did when you use rhetoric that's backed up by a discipline, specialized rhetoric is so powerful because those of us who aren't lawyers, we read that and we think oh, this is more serious, it's more valid because of this, the rhetorical material that's involved in the way the argument is presented, I think it carried the day because of that. It was a brilliant rhetorical strategy. That group is families are concerned today. The concern was what I couldn't get. I wanted to get it anyway. Yes,

Tom Kimball [01:03:03] I come from this conversation. Right. I guess I was born in 1976. I don't remember. But as I said, I had a chance to read your book and I look forward to it. If you look at the history of the suffrage movement, there's obviously a disparity in how the politics unfolded within the women of the church. My perception is that.

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:03:34] Do you mean in the 19th century? Is that what you're talking about?

Tom Kimball [01:03:39] There was a lot of profoundly grand benefits from political involvement of these women. And it kind of breaks my heart to listen to the story, the 20th century version. But at the same time, was there any benefit, was there any empowerment involved?

Martha Sontag Bradley [01:04:01] I think a lot of the people who were involved in the campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment were empowered by it. Absolutely. For many women, it was the first time they'd ever been politically active at all and they liked it, which was exactly what happened in the 19th century because in the 19th century, most women didn't have public lives. They had domestic lives and private lives, but they hardly ever were in public. And so going to the Mass indignation meeting at the Tabernacle, when Mormon women came out, what, 7,000, 8,000 women came out to protest the federal government's treatment of polygamists. That was empowering to them. Same thing's true about all the women who went to the International Women Year conferences or demonstrations. They were empowered by that in an interesting way.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.