While male members of the LDS Church attended the priesthood session of general conference Saturday night, some women gathered separately to demand the right to pray to a "Mother in Heaven."
About 100 women and a few men filled the Behavioral Sciences Auditorium at the University of Utah to discuss the theological controversy and issues of equality within the faith.Church members Lynne Kanauel-Whitesides, Margaret Tuscano and Martha Esplin spoke. They recently returned from a similar discussion at March's Sunstone Symposium in Los Angeles.
The three women from Salt Lake City spoke out in opposition to a speech given in May by President Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson. President Hinckley discouraged women from praying publicly to a heavenly mother.
"I think President Hinckley's picture of God is different from mine and my friends," said Kanauel-Whitesides. "In fact, I think there are many different pictures of God. God will be as we make God to be."