The June 1

[ERCougar]

But she seems to deny the Bishop's involvement prior to his delivering notice of her disciplinary council in her defense letter:



Given her contemporaneous record of the alleged December meeting with her bishop and stake president:



the claim in the defense letter appears blatantly and demonstrably untrue.

"Open dialogue". I don't think her account implies an "open dialogue" at all.

lol. She knew from the very beginning she was eventually going to be confronted with some form of potential Church discipline. She also knew she would be able to fight her case in the full view of her supporters without being countered by the Church. I don't disagree that your scenario is very possible, and maybe even likely. However believing she wasn't going full speed ahead with her eyes wide open seems naive.

She knew it was a possibility before this meeting. I get the sense she was reassured by the meeting, however, as well as by her bishops (alleged) failure to further address the issue.

Right. It's a win-win for her. If nothing ever happens, great. If something happens--and by her own story, she was expressing some concern about a HQ-mandated crack down on OW at the December meeting with her bishop--she can later claim she was blindsided.

That's awfully calculating. I'm obviously more sympathetic, but I've been listening to her talk for a while--it just doesn't fit her persona, at least before the decision. Or maybe she's just that good.

In any case, how would the relatively minor point of what was actually said at this meeting help her case? (Spoiler: it didn't). And why would she bring it up? I guess you could say she planned on going down as a martyr from the beginning, but if so, we'll just have to disagree. I don't think her actions really reflect that mindset.

[LVAllen]

I guess you could say she planned on going down as a martyr from the beginning, but if so, we'll just have to disagree. I don't think her actions really reflect that mindset.

It was all part of her nefarious plan to go without sleeves.

[Uncle Ted]

I was watching media day most of the time last night and only caught portions of the national breaking news alerts.

Did this excommunication happen late last night? Do you suspect that is why it wasn't caught by the national media? Surely the church officials realize the national media can pick up on it today and they are only delayng the national outcry.

I take it you don't watch MSNBC...

http://www.msnbc.com/newsnation/watc...d-288807491921

Yeah, I don't watch it either.

[ERCougar]

http://m.theatlantic.com/national/ar...#disqus_thread

[Donuthole]

"Open dialogue". I don't think her account implies an "open dialogue" at all.

She knew it was a possibility before this meeting. I get the sense she was reassured by the meeting, however, as well as by her bishops (alleged) failure to further address the issue.

That's awfully calculating. I'm obviously more sympathetic, but I've been listening to her talk for a while--it just doesn't fit her persona, at least before the decision. Or maybe she's just that good.

In any case, how would the relatively minor point of what was actually said at this meeting help her case? (Spoiler: it didn't). And why would she bring it up? I guess you could say she planned on going down as a martyr from the beginning, but if so, we'll just have to disagree. I don't think her actions really reflect that mindset.

I'm not saying it was Plan A, but if you suspect you might eventually be going down (not THAT going down, sickos!) it never hurts to go down as a martyr. I don't think that's awfully calculating or ingenious; I think it's something I would expect from someone competent and with an agenda.

[myboynoah]

And she contemporaneously recorded this December conversation.

My 10% chance that the stake president and bishop are correctly recalling things just dropped to 1%.

The preferred method here is some measurement of salt.

[Donuthole]

http://m.theatlantic.com/national/ar...#disqus_thread

[Pheidippides]

I'm not saying it was Plan A, but if you suspect you might eventually be going down (not THAT going down, sickos!) it never hurts to go down as a martyr. I don't think that's awfully calculating or ingenious; I think it's something I would expect from someone competent and with an agenda.

I don't disagree with this. I think it had to have at least crossed her mind that this was a potential end game. Now, to me it doesn't matter if she met with her stake president daily and lied about it.

[Pelado]

"Open dialogue". I don't think her account implies an "open dialogue" at all.

She knew it was a possibility before this meeting. I get the sense she was reassured by the meeting, however, as well as by her bishops (alleged) failure to further address the issue.

That's awfully calculating. I'm obviously more sympathetic, but I've been listening to her talk for a while--it just doesn't fit her persona, at least before the decision. Or maybe she's just that good.

In any case, how would the relatively minor point of what was actually said at this meeting help her case? (Spoiler: it didn't). And why would she bring it up? I guess you could say she planned on going down as a martyr from the beginning, but if so, we'll just have to disagree. I don't think her actions really reflect that mindset.

I'm not sure that this really matters, but her description of and reaction to the December meeting made me feel that it was more of an "open dialogue":

Clearly the power dynamic was not balanced, but I came away from the meeting feeling proud and satisfied. While they do not agree with me, I felt I spoke clearly and the discussion was a productive one.

http://www.feministmormonhousewives....cating-sexism/

[ERCougar]

I'm not sure that this really matters, but her description of and reaction to the December meeting made me feel that it was more of an "open dialogue":



http://www.feministmormonhousewives....cating-sexism/

Well, now we're quibbling over definitions. I could see two sides interpreting the same conversation differently. Regardless, she didn't sound very "advised to dissociate", which is the claim of her bishop.

[Pelado]

Well, now we're quibbling over definitions. I could see two sides interpreting the same conversation differently. Regardless, she didn't sound very "advised to dissociate", which is the claim of her bishop.

I could see a meeting as described by others in which the bishop/SP felt they had told her "Discontinue your involvement with OW" but that she heard it as "You won't be excommunicated for your involvement with OW."

Aside from that, though, I have a hard time saying she is not being at least disingenuous when she claimed in her defense letter that the bishop had not at all responded to her repeated requests to meet with her when she had previously acknowledged that they had a "productive" in-person discussion on the matter in December at the request of the bishop/SP.

Edit: She would have been much better off in the defense letter to say "When I met with you and the SP in December, you both told me I would not face church discipline for my OW activity. I do not understand this sudden change in course, as I communicated to Pres. XXX at our May meeting."

[ERCougar]

Well, ok. We can disagree on this. I don't think it's a major point--if they had given her probationary warning in December, I'm not sure she would have given up OW anyway. I wonder if part of her point was that she tried the given channels of questioning (direct priesthood leaders) and they were (relatively) unresponsive, forcing her to take a different approach. As much as some want to pretend otherwise, real changes occurred due to OWs tactics. They were far from the first LDS feminists.

Edit: agree with your edit.

[CardiacCoug]

Suppose the hospital you worked at belonged to IHC. Would the CEO of IHC meet with you? Doubt it.

Uhhh... Yes Charles Sorenson absolutely would meet with any one of the over 1000 docs employed by Intermountain and he does things like that all the time.

[SoCalCoug]

Certainly looks like the bishop is right about the December meeting:

So what is she claiming the Bishop has lied about in regard to their communications? She's said it multiple times now.

I haven't heard her words where she says he's lying, but if you look at the letter with the decision, the bishop claims to have told her to dissociate from OW in the December meeting. That's not at all what she says in her post on fmh immediately following the meeting. I'll take an immediate account over one written six months later any day. If anything, that immediate fmh account strengthens her case. A lot.

And yes, lying for the Lord has precedent in excommunication cases (Toscano?).

I'm with ERCougar on this. I initially believed the Bishop's letter was particularly troublesome for Kelley's claims. But then I read her December blog post, and I think the pendulum's swung the other way. It's persuasive that her blog post was made in December, right after the meeting. She certainly did not seem to come away from the meeting feeling she'd been instructed to disassociate from Ordain Women. Does anyone really believe she just completely lied back in December to set herself up for potential excommunication? Why is the Bishop not being questioned by the same people questioning Kelley on this? I think his characterization of the meeting is completely different from hers. It's honestly pretty self-serving, and clearly made without knowledge that Kelley has publicly posted her thoughts contemporaneously.

I think in order to discount Kelley's contemporaneous post, and accept at face value the Bishop's letter, it has to be based on an assumption that the Bishop is telling the truth. Therefore, Kelley's contemporaneous blog post is not truthful. Take this out of the religious context and put it in the middle of a normal civil dispute, and that blog post is a huge mark in favor of Kelley's credibility, and against the Bishop's.

Kelly said that the result of the December meeting was that they agreed to disagree, but she was told emphatically that she was not under threat of discipline for her work with OW. OTOH, the bishop claimed that during that meeting, she was told to disassociate herself from OW. Also, that she was counseled regarding the "doctrine of the priesthood" - this is an important point. The bishop also claimed that the Stake President reminded her of that conversation in March and again in April. She's claiming the stake president didn't talk to her in March and April. So when she was put on probation, it was partially because she "persisted in teaching as doctrine information that is not doctrine after having been counseled regarding the doctrine of the priesthood."

The explanation of the meeting by the Bishop just smacks of an after-the-fact attempt to spin the result of a meeting in your favor. If they truly tried to dissuade her of her involvement, how could she really have come out of the meeting feeling discipline is out of the question, and feeling positive about it.

Had her blog post been made after excommunication was on the table, it would have completely lost credibility. But a contemporaneous description of the meeting has some measure of credibility.

I could see a meeting as described by others in which the bishop/SP felt they had told her "Discontinue your involvement with OW" but that she heard it as "You won't be excommunicated for your involvement with OW."

Aside from that, though, I have a hard time saying she is not being at least disingenuous when she claimed in her defense letter that the bishop had not at all responded to her repeated requests to meet with her when she had previously acknowledged that they had a "productive" in-person discussion on the matter in December at the request of the bishop/SP.

Edit: She would have been much better off in the defense letter to say "When I met with you and the SP in December, you both told me I would not face church discipline for my OW activity. I do not understand this sudden change in course, as I communicated to Pres. XXX at our May meeting."

Wasn't the December meeting at the Bishop or Stake President's request? Looking at her letter, this is what she actually said: "Despite the fact that I emailed you in March 2013, August 2013, October 2013 &again in April 2014 regarding my Ordain Women activities, you never bothered to respond or follow-up on my repeated invitation to engage in an open dialogue in person." The December meeting doesn't make that statement false. It appears she made several attempts over the course of a year. Finally in December she had that one meeting with the Bishop and Stake President in which she noted the imbalance in power, with her main takeaways being she wasn't under threat of discipline, and that there wasn't a concerted crackdown on OrdainWomen.org.

A single meeting with the takeaway being she's not being targeted for discipline doesn't really strike me as an open and honest dialogue. They seemed to just agree to disagree. Had there been other meetings, it could have been part of a continuing open dialogue, but I get the impression from her letter that multiple emails went ignored. I don't see evidence of a continuing open dialogue. Her letter doesn't seem to me to be disingenuous on that point.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Can't even keep up with this. When you guys get this sorted out can someone give me an executive summary? TIA.