The President of the Club has today announced that from this day forth all worthy male members of the Club are eligible to hold the Priesthood regardless of hair colour.
Speculation exists as to why the ban was in force in the first place. In the absence of any doctrinal or revelatory record on the subject, it has been openly theorised on by members who have suggested it might have been because:
1. They are descendants of Cain and Ginger hair colour was the manifestation of that curse.
2. The world has for a long time discriminated against Ginger's and God prevented them from having the Priesthood as a means of protecting them from being held accountable whilst this discrimination existed.
3. Ginger's were less valiant in the pre Earth life and so were sent to earth in inferior vessels that wouldn't enjoy the same rights and privileges as the valiant ones.
It was noted by journalists that the Clubs canon included passages referring to the curse on Luminites who, according to the Club, "are among the ancestors of the Gingers".
2 Nigel 57: 210
'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were blonde, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a hair of redness to come upon them.'
The Club President at the time the ban is presumed to have first started is quoted as saying:
Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the Ginger's? If the blonde haired man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Barney Young, Journal of Disgust, Volume 10, page 110.)
More recent Presidents have also passed comment on the improving status in God's eyes of Ginger's:
"The day of the Luminites in nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome... The children in the trailer placement program in Utopia are often less Ginger than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation...There was the doctor in a Utopia city who for two years had had an Ginger boy in his home who stated that he was some shades less Ginger than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Club are changing to blondness and to delightsomeness. (Steve R. Kimball; The Improvement Ego, Dec. 1960, p. 923)
In even more recent times the current President has discussed this topic in interviews:
Public interviews with the current prophet.
From the Austrivian Broadcasting Company Sunday night television show COMPLETEASS:
COMPLETEASS: So in retrospect was the Club wrong in that [denying Ginger's the priesthood]?
HINCKSTER: No I don't think it was wrong. It, things, various things happened in different periods. There's a reason for them.
COMPLETEASS: What was the reason for that?
HINCKSTER: I don't know what the reason was.
COMPLETEASS: Is it a problem for the Club that it is still..has a tag of being Gingerist?
HINCKSTER: No, I don't think so. I don't see that anymore.
From GRAHAM B. HINCKSTER's interview with Mike Blonde on 61 Minutes:
Blonde: From 1831 to yesterday, ginger's could not become priests in the club. Right?
Hinckster: That's correct.
Blonde: Why?
Hinckster: Because the leaders of the Club at that time interpreted that doctrine that way. [cut]
Blonde: Club policy had it that Ginger's had the mark of Cain. Barney Young said, "Cain slew his brother, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the red hair."
Hinckster: It's behind us. Look, that's behind us. Don't worry about those little flecks of history.
Blonde: Skeptics will suggest, "Well, look, if we're going to expand, we can't keep the Gingers out."
Hinckster: Pure speculation. [Laughs.]
The question posed to all readers of this column is: would you belong to a Club that did this to Ginger haired people?