Sorry, I messed up the block quote. This is the sentiment I love.

I love this sentiment.

I do believe Mormonism will eventually give women the priesthood. I just don’t know how long it will take.

That said though, I make an effort to point out that evangelical Christianity really doesn’t have much high ground on the racism issue. It’s not like we were treating blacks as equals from the beginning, and we’re still healing our own racial divide.

I remember talking to a man of another faith who was both very opposed to the LDS church and also black. He was complaining about blacks not being allowed to hold the Priesthood. In the middle of his tirade I stopped him and said, “Sir, do you believe that the LDS church has been given authority from God to act in His name through the Priesthood?” His response was, “No, of course not!” To which I responded, “Then why does it bother you that the LDS church would not allow black men to hold a power that they (the church) do not have in the first place? In other words, if we don’t have the Priesthood, then why does it matter?” That stopped him short. He was still opposed to the church for many other reasons, but at least he stopped worrying about that one.

Um, because it is racial discrimination. Doesn;t matter if the priesthood is really God’s power and authority. It would bother people if any Church ordained clergy or not based on race, regardless if they thought that church was true or not, because it marginalizes the race within the Church’s society, independent of whether it is supernaturally effacacious.