Kate Kelly

Kathleen Marie Kelly (born 1981 (age 33)) is an American activist, human rights lawyer, and Mormon feminist who founded Ordain Women, an organization advocating for the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Kelly graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2006.

While at BYU, she organized a campus free speech protest of nearly 100 students concerning the firing of a university employee for criticizing student elections.

While at BYU, and for a time after she graduated, Kelly wrote for The Mormon Worker, a Mormon left-leaning publication modeled after the Catholic Worker newspaper founded by Dorothy Day.

In 2010 Kelly founded "Mormon May Day" as a day for liberal or radical Mormons to hold a collective fast and make their voices heard within Mormonism on progressive themes.

For the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Kelly wrote a piece for Rewire News connecting votes for women to the continued campaign to ratify the ERA saying, "Today, two fights are left unwon—universal suffrage and ratification of the ERA."

Kelly earned a Juris Doctor from the Washington College of Law at American University in 2012.

During Kelly's legal career, she has worked for many different human rights and advocacy organizations.

She is the host of the podcast Ordinary Equality on the Wonder Media Network, and the author of Ordinary Equality: The Fearless Women and Queer People Who Helped Shape the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Rights Amendment (Gibbs Smith, 2022).

Kelly's book Ordinary Equality was favorable reviewed by Oprah Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews.

In August 2012, the same year she graduated law school, Kelly attended her first rally for the ERA on the front lawn of the United States Capitol.

Kelly then helped revive the group Mormons for ERA originally founded by excommunicated Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson.

In May 2013, Kelly founded Ordain Women, an organization advocating for the ordination of women to the priesthood in the LDS Church.

Local church leaders asked Kelly to cease her campaign.

Kelly was excommunicated from the church in 2014.

She is also a nationally known advocate for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and abortion access.

Kelly subsequently demonstrated on Temple Square during the church's April 2014 General Conference, after which she was excommunicated in June 2014 in absentia after declining to attend a disciplinary council.

She instead submitted a written defense through her representative Nadine Hansen, a fellow Mormon feminist attorney, and hundreds of letters on her behalf from supporters.

In the weeks before and after her excommunication, Kelly urged followers to stay in the church and "raise hell" if they could do so while maintaining their mental and emotional health.

Kelly appealed her excommunication, first to her stake president, then to the church's First Presidency, all of whom rejected the appeal.

Kelly often states that “equality is not a feeling,” meaning gender equality is something that can be objectively measured and does not depend on the individual feelings of worthiness or individual women feeling valued by their community.

In October 2015, Kelly participated in the attempted ordination of a female Roman Catholic priest coordinated by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, an organization claiming affiliation with the Catholic Church.

Ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood goes against canon law and any known participants are automatically excommunicated.

In January 2017, Kelly helped plan the Utah contingent of the Women's March on Washington and helped organize several hundred women to attend the march in Washington, D.C. The following Monday she organized and emceed one of the largest marches in Utah's history on the State Capitol in Salt Lake City.

At that rally, Kelly said, “I'm sick and tired of men making laws about our bodies and our choices and our lives without consulting us.”

In 2017, after the women's marches worldwide turned attention to women's rights, Kelly helped draft an ERA ratification resolution in Utah (one of 15 unratified states at the time) and helped recruit state senator Jim Dabakis to sponsor the resolution.

The ERA has not been ratified in Utah and is opposed by the LDS Church, but Kelly continues to advocate for ratification there.

Kelly said in Truthout that more interest in the ERA exists today because, "I think that women are realizing that nothing that we have is permanent. Nothing is too sacred to be rolled back, and things that we have taken for granted in the past are now up for grabs."

She is featured in the MSNBC documentary This Happened: On Account of Sex on the ERA.

Kelly came out as queer in 2019 and began a same-sex relationship with a Catholic writer pushing for similar goals within the Catholic Church.

Kelly was born in Arizona to Jim and Donna Kelly.

One of five siblings, she grew up in Hood River, Oregon.

Her mother is an attorney and her father a retired newspaper publisher and university administrator.

Both parents were converts to the LDS Church, and her father at one time served as the bishop of a local congregation, known as a ward.

In May 2019, Kelly helped facilitate workshops in Uruguay and Argentina for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed.

Kelly then participated in workshops put on by the Rapporteurship in Geneva in September 2019 and New York in October, situations where the human rights of women, sexual orientation and gender identity minorities clash with the right to freedom of religion or belief.

The workshops culminated in a report which was presented to the Human Rights Council in early 2020.

Kelly has long spoken out about sexual harassment and assault against women.

In January 2020, with a group of other women and activists, she performed the viral anti-rape protest anthem "Un Violador en Tu Camino" (The Rapist in Your Path) outside the Harvey Weinstein trial in New York City.

Kelly said of the action, "pointing the finger of blame for sexual assault at the appropriate target ... was a cathartic experience, to feel our collective feminist power as a force for good."