This was one of the first issues (the first?) that really shook a fair number of self identifying intellectuals out of the church.
Sonia Johnson figured prominently. Here is part of her wiki blurb:
Quote:
Sonia Johnson was born in Malad, Idaho as a fifth-generation Mormon. She attended Utah State University and married Rick Johnson following graduation. Following her marriage she earned a Master's degree and a Doctor of Education from Rutgers College. She was employed as a part-time teacher of English in universities both in the United States and abroad for the following decades. The couple changed their residence often, due to the transfer of her husband to new places of employment. They returned to the United States in 1976.
Sonia began speaking out in support of the ERA in 1977 and co-founded, with three other women, an organization called Mormons for ERA. National exposure occurred with her 1978 testimony in front of the United States Senate's Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, and she continued speaking and promoting the ERA and denouncing the LDS Church's opposition to the amendment.
The church began disciplinary proceedings against her after she delivered a scathing speech entitled "Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church" at a meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in New York City in September, 1979. Sonia denounced allegedly immoral and illegal nationwide lobbying efforts by the LDS Church to prevent passage of the ERA.[1]
Because the speech drew national media attention, Sonia’s local Virginia church immediately began excommunication proceedings. A December, 1979 ex-communication letter confirmed that Sonia Johnson was charged with a variety of misdeeds including hindering the worldwide missionary program, damaging internal Mormon social programs and teaching false doctrine.[2]
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One of my relatives was a witness for her at her court and essentially followed her out the door of the church thereafter. The Bishop at the time still lives in that same ward. It is the ward DrumNFeather lives in now.