Equal Rights Amendment
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“I think you’ll find
our women are very happy now. We have a dissident
now and again, somebody who speaks out very sharply, very strongly. But
that’s very unusual. Statistically it’s such a very small item that
you’d hardly reckon with it.... They’re outspoken. They speak up. They
feel strongly about it. That’s their prerogative. They talk about it a
good deal, and we’ve heard what they’ve had to say. We’ve heard it
again and again. We feel they’re not right. We let them go forward with
what they’re doing. If they speak out against the church in a strong,
vigorous way, then possibly some action will be taken.”
-
Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Richard
Ostling, in Mormon
America, by
Richard and Joan Ostling, p. 364
“Word was received
from somewhere that a recent poll showed ERA
slightly ahead, and this was used to mobilize the Mormon Church in the
Las Vegas area (where over 50 percent of Nevada’s population resides)
for one last major effort. A meeting was called on Saturday night of
Mormon leaders from throughout the area, and around 2,000 attended. In
an emotion-packed meeting, they were strongly encouraged to do
everything possible to make sure that ERA was defeated. These people
went back to their individual wards (churches), and mobilize them to
call others, to distribute literature, to get people to the polls, and
to do “poll-watching,” using church lists in some cases. Claims and
charges having been made since then that up to 9,000 Mormons were
involved in calling and literature distribution over the next two days,
and that virtually every Mormon in Las Vegas was called and urged to
vote, and that literature was “dropped” on virtually every doorstep in
Las Vegas the day before the election... This writer has been told by
Mormons and non-Mormons alike that upwards of 95 percent of all
eligible Mormons voted in the election, which, if true, represents an
astounding voter turnout which would have put even Mayor Daley and his
Chicago Machine to shame.”
-
James T. Richardson, sociologist, “The ‘Old Right’
in Action: Mormon and Catholic Involvement in an Equal Rights Amendment
Referendum,” in David G. Bromley and Anson Shupe, eds., New
Christian Politics,
1984, pp. 213-233.
“In just two days,
California Mormons alone contributed close to
$13,000 [to the anti-ERA campaign]. A Florida Church leader, explaining
how efficiently the [telephone tree] system works, said: ‘The structure
exists where I can make 16 calls, and by the end of the day, 2,700
people will know something.”
-
Linda Cicero, “Mormon Money Worked Against
Florida’s ERA,” Miami
Herald, April 20,
1980, p. A1
“I don’t even know who
he was [anti-ERA candidate]. I don’t even know
what he was running for. I donated because our church wanted us to
support this man.”
- Linda
Cicero, “Mormon Money Worked Against Florida’s
ERA,” Miami Herald, April 20, 1980, p. 33-A
“The publicity also
served to draw more Latter-day Saint women into
political activity. When a state legislature’s agenda included possible
ratification of the ERA (or rescission of an earlier ratification),
Relief Society women became involved.”
-
Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of the Covenant,
p. 368