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We are Ridiculous postMormon Feminists. We are men and women, gay and straight, white and of color, of varying ages and abilities, from many nationalities and economic backgrounds, but we are all trendy, worldly pseudo-intellectuals. As such, we write this proclamation to selfishly assert our needs and our agenda for those oppressed by the church’s stand on issues of gender and sexuality, which is so traditional it is just no longer cool, hip and suitable for mainstream left-wing America.

We affirm that the LDS Church has to move out of the 18th century into the 21st century and get with the times and drop this whole Bible thing. Vox populi is where it is at, and the old school prophet stuff is just a load of crap...unless we are voted to be the prophets, then it is cool and we are down with that.

But, we are not, so as such, we assert that we will overthrow the current hierarchy so we can grab power from them, because they do not understand that we don't want to repent or change and our ideas concerning Jesus are that he accepts us in our sins no matter what so you Priesthood-wielders who tell us to repent and submit to the Authority of God are just a bunch of out-of-touch old farts and we are hip and cool.

Additionally, we like to pretend that the last pair of chromosomes in every cell of our bodies does not determine our sex, but rather people can choose their "gender" by doing whatever they want regardless of consequences to society. People ought to be allowed to be horribly selfish and do whatever they want, because the individual is more important than the family and, besides, families are just groups of individuals, and having two mothers on a birth certificate proves we are not just pretending that sperm-donors don't exist. They really, legally do not exist.

We covet the Priesthood and will take it from you and give it to whoever we want, whenever we want, regardless of what they do, because that's the way we roll.

While we affirm the free agency of each individual to make their own choices about Mormon belief and practice, but if you don't agree with us and follow suit then you had better get the hell out of the way because we are going to build our own version of the all-inclusive Zion where sin is OK right over your stodgy, old white man geezerhoodness and we will pave right over your front yard in the process.

We acknowledge that large changes seldom happen overnight. We suggest the following as beginning steps to achieving the goals discussed above:

1) Call couples to serve in bishoprics together. Allow women to interview and hear the confessions of other women, because they will be able to feed the ward grapevine all that much faster and get peer pressure into play to get everyone in line faster.
2) Jettison boy scouts and create the same youth programs for girls and boys, seriously, Boy Scouts is so freakin 1940 Normal Rockwell. Get with the times, we need a program that encourages Gay men to spend time with vulnerable and impressionable boys
3) Drop the "preside" language about marriage. Focus on co-equal partnerships, especially that co-equal part about me telling you what to do and you doing it while I watch Oprah
4) Make priesthood ordinations optional and/or given as a young person desires it--sort of like a patriarchal blessing. Allow both girls and boys the same opportunities for ordination, and also make child-bearing optional for males, because this one woman-one womb thing is a load of bull, it is time for you lazy men to start bearing some of your own children
5) Let women learn their husbands' new names at the temple veil, even though that whole temple thing will be abolished when we take over the Church, we demand equality now just before we dismantle it all and recreate it in our own wymnly imyge.
6) Allow same-sex couples to be sealed in the temple, even when local laws don't allow legal marriage, because we have to beat San Francisco and Boston to the punch and prove we are more progressive than anyone else on the planet, oh, and introduce some new movies into the ceremony with Adam and Steve and Adelle and Eve, just to make Homosexuals more comfortable
7) Let women plan and speak at their own RS Conferences w/no men involved, because even though we now demand to be totally involved in everything the Priesthood does, you had better be sure we will exclude you from our meetings from now on to make up for all the years of abuse
8) Allow women to preside over official meetings, such as sacrament meeting, the name of which will now be changed to Communal Good Feelings Total Acceptance Meetings, since the Sacrament is an ancient form of patriarchal ritual instituted by a man and only given to men deemed worthy with no womyn present
9) Make all callings totally voluntary, self-serving and entirely self-promotional, so we can take complete control of everything, now. And then exclude everyone who doesn't agree with us. Now.

13 comments

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 7:18 AM

Shouldnt that be "Womynifesto"?

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 8:00 AM

Too funny, Snarkimus. I was wondering why it took you so long to notice that piece of low-hanging fruit, but the wait was worth it.

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 8:03 AM

But you really need to find a way to include the words ableism and reify. Sheesh, talk about pretentious and ridiculous.

Response to Jodi Stoddard said... @ February 20, 2007 at 8:55 AM

The ableism thing was just some nonsense thrown in by these ExPo2 dingbats who are trying so hard to be sensitive and politically correct, hence the complete lack of anything in their statement about how they are going to reify their commitment to the diseabled.

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 9:13 AM

"women learn their husbands temple names"

Yes, that oughta really rally the troops.

To the ramparts, sisters! Speak truth to power! Make your husband tell you his temple name NOW!

If ExMoII and FeMaleHormone didn't exist, you'd probably be out of a job.

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 10:14 AM

Hilarious....these people are no longer even Mormon, they're Quakers. Why do they care about the mormons anymore? They should be manifesting to the quakers about how women should um, do something different, and men should subjugate to them.

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 3:51 PM

Of course, JohnR rides to the rescue when a MAN dares appear and point out that the manifesto essentially renders the Doctrine and Covenants null and void:

"Ryan, it's interesting how you can barge into a feminist forum and arrogantly argue from a purely patriarchal position."

Yeah, Ryan, didn't you know only us womyn and wanna-be womyn cursed with penises are allowed to say anything here?

Anonymous said... @ February 20, 2007 at 3:56 PM

Forget to add that I'm waiting for Quimby to write in that she is against the Manifesto, as she is in favor of a 200 year matriarchy in the Church. That way men will know how it feels to have the boot of oppression grinding their faces into the dust.

Only after that period of getting even will the Manifesto enter into effect.

jana said... @ February 20, 2007 at 10:06 PM

SP:
Thanks for the snark--it's a great way to spread the word about our Manifesta. :)

Anonymous said... @ February 21, 2007 at 9:19 AM

snarkitator,

Your very well done snark fails to reify the ableists. As such, the highest score I can give you is 9.9.

However, this is certainly a case where reality defies parody. If every writer for the Daily Show went on a three day drunken bender, they still could not have written something as ridiculous as the original wymynifesta. Those wacky penis challenged gals at ExMoToo have outdone themselves yet again. You simply cannot make this up.

jana hunny, you will be careful about leaving that wymynifesta lying around the house, won't you Dahlink? I would hate for the cat to try to bury something that big.

Anonymous said... @ February 23, 2007 at 10:48 AM

I think we are sorely in need of less manifestering.

Let us pass around the balm of Gilead,
and make the wounded whole.

Millie said... @ February 28, 2007 at 3:48 PM

I love you. I assume this is a male writing this, and if so, I'd propose marriage, but

1) Polyandry is not the acceptable type of polygamy in this church

2) It's not my place to propose, being the traditional throwback chick that I am, and

3) I have a super hot hubby already.

Otherwise, I applaud this, and I'd link to it, but Jana has a point about more poor folks being subjected to her goofiness.

Anonymous said... @ March 6, 2007 at 10:32 PM

Very funny, just like the original. Not knowing anything about the ExMoII blog before I followed the link from T&S, my first thought was that Jana was DKL. Later I found out that it wasn't true, Jana's just trying out Quakerism.

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