Thank you. The Testing 1,2,3.

This is Radio Free Mormon on the air, broadcasting behind enemy lines.

Tonight's episode, The Stand Down Order to LDS women. Today's date is November 26,

2023. It is the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, and just over this weekend, I believe it was

this past Friday. There was a newspaper article that was published in the Salt Lake Tribune regarding women

and their status, for lack of a better word, in several stakes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And I've got several people, several women who are on the show to give their takes

and their understandings of this order, how it is that was perceived by them when they learned

about it. But before that, before I bring them on, I want to read just the very first few

paragraphs of this article from the Salt Lake Tribune,

which was written by Piggy Fletcher Stack.

It was originally published on November 24, 2003, and it was updated just yesterday on November 25th,

2003.

It is titled, A Slap in the Face, LDS Relief Society Leaders ordered off the stand.

Area President puts an end to this Bay Area tradition.

Many women are asking why.

So the very first few paragraphs of this article, which is all I'll be reading today,

it seemed like such a simple

act of inclusion.

Having female relief society leaders sitting on the stand facing the pews during Latter-day

Saint Sunday services has been a non-controversial tradition among some congregations in the

San Francisco Bay area for a decade or more.

...