Ever visited a Masonic Temple?

[PassingFair]

13. Bullshit boy's club.

I went on a "behind the scenes" tour of our Masonic Temple.
Built in the run-up to the depression.
Never finished.

I asked the tour guide (a Mason) why women (still) can't join the Masons,
and he condescendingly informed me that the word "fraternity" explicitly
means a group of "men", and that the Mason's were a "fraternal" society.
"Do you understand what FRATERNAL means?"
So it was simply against the definition of the Masons to allow females.
("You should check out the Eastern Star!"....as if I would be interested in a group
that does all the drudge work and gets no credit or reward.)

I asked him how come you could join if you weren't really a mason, since "by definition"
Masons were builders who worked with stone....

My personal belief is that, at least in the United States, the Masons were popular
and grew as an answer to the powerful Catholic groups like the Knights of Columbus.
A place for Protestants of various sects to band together and outnumber the Catholic threat.

Detroit's Masonic Temple, the largest ever built:




Building began in 1926 and halted abruptly in 1929. Never finished developing the interior.

55,000 dues paying Protestants in 1926....no BLACK Protestants, though.

The Temple was about to fall into foreclosure until April of this year, when JACK WHITE
paid off their back taxes:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130604/BUSINESS06/306040092/Masonic-Temple-Jack-White-Detroit?odyssey=obinsite