Article detailing how the LDS Church moved regular Sunday meetings to different buildings in an attempt to avoid protesters [Click image to enlarge.]

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Collection MSS 225, Box 3, Folder 1.)

The LDS Church took a nonconfrontational approach to protesters. They avoided engaging with the protesters by delaying the sustaining vote at General Conference and moving church meetings. A MERA newsletter in October 1982 reported that the LDS Church intentionally delayed the sustaining vote at General Conference and asked church security to attempt to limit public protests.[1] In California, leaders moved regular Sunday meetings to different buildings in order to avoid protesters who chained themselves to a Mormon meeting house in San Diego. The women preemptively obtained bail money from an anonymous donor, hoping they would be arrested. A spokeswoman for the group told the San Diego Tribune that they “were prepared to fast in jail.”[2] A local leader, Stake President Craig Bullock, did not engage with the women’s protest and believed they only wanted publicity. He tried to avoid the spectacle and moved the meetings to other chapels rather than confront the women.