Huffington Post, in a article by Antonia Blumberg, has a feature on the movement to ordain women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
A Mormon church official notified the women’s advocacy group, Ordain Women, that it would not be granted tickets nor allowed to protest in Salt Lake City’s historic Temple Square during the faith’s general priesthood meeting on April 5, The Associated Press reported on Monday.
The group, which celebrated its one-year anniversary on March 17, seeks to bring gender equality and women’s ordination to the table in a faith that, they say, has a long tradition of equality.
The article also points to an article by Peggy Fletcher Stack in The Salt Lake Tribune:
The church “has regretfully upped the ante,” says Steve Evans, a Salt Lake City attorney and Mormon blogger. “The repeat of last year’s activity was not destined to gain as much press as before, but now things have changed. If it not only refuses entry to these women but also forces them off of Temple Square, the church may inadvertently send the message that it feels threatened by the Ordain Women movement.”
Mormons need to see that their church “is open to serious, faithful conversation about the role of women in God’s organization,” says Evans, a founder of the LDS blog, By Common Consent. “This response probably sends the wrong message.”
It’s also a “PR disaster for the church,” says Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. “Goliath is never going to get better press than David — the optics are terrible.”
….the church’s letter may have unwittingly created sympathy among some Mormons who were not ready to join the Ordain Women movement.
“Ordination is not my bosom-burning cause. But I am tired of seeing women I love leave the faith because there is no serious, open respectful conversation within the church about issues that matter to them and because they are stigmatized and rejected when they dare to ask the questions,” LDS scholar and writer Joanna Brookswrites at Feminist Mormon Housewives. “Today, again, the church sought to push out women who are asking the questions.”
Both articles stress that the majority of women within the LDS Church do not want women to be ordained.