[Levin]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I find the epilogue to the Prop. 8 vote a fascinating morality play. What's the right answer to the issue? I think I know. I've had an exchange with LA Ute and he didn't disuade me. But I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

I'm referring to the picketing, the forced resignations, businesses boycotted, etc. If it's non-violent, if it involves an exercise of First Amendment rights, what's the problem? I heard the recent piece NPR ran on these events. The piece was sympathetic to the Prop. 8 supporters who have suffered a backlash. I didn't hear the whole show, but interestingly enough three of the four people they featured were Mormons.

But all these people said the same thing essentially, "Hey, gays are some of my best friends, they have spent a lot of money in my business, our theater has run plays written by gays about gays [and so on, etc. etc. etc.], they have helped me pay my mortgage." Then the clincher: "I was just doing what my bishop told me to do." They all say essentially the same thing.

My reaction: HELLLLOOOOO!!!!!!! What did you expect would happen? You're a grown up. Maybe next time you won't just do what an authority figure tells you to do. Dipshit, you blindly do what you're told then don't want to suffer any consequence for your actions. You're a baby! Sorry, that's my reaction. I'm asking here if I'm wrong.

I've started reading "The Kindly Ones." The narrator is an unrepentant former member of the SS who committed terrible atrocities and then slipped through the allied net at the conclusion of the war. The book is one of those rare ones that perfectly blend repulsive horror story and compulsively readablility; it's unputdownable. In the opening pages the narrator lays out a very articulate rationalization for himself and others in his position. It boils down to this: "Go ahead and judge me, but I never asked to be a mass murderer. In war, we all lose our right to live, and to not murder. The difference between you and me is who is telling us to do what. Most people do what their authority figures tell them to do."

These people all seem to be saying the same thing. What am I missing?

This reminds me of War and Peace, and Tolstoy's theory of free agency. I'm sure you read it, but Tolstoy's essay on War and Peace explains that his primary aim was to show that over large events, people have little choice. That is, a person born in Russia during the Napoleonic wars was likely to be a part of those wars; no choice. But the Russian soldier in the war did have a choice at the minute level; he had a choice over what kind of soldier he'd be. So free agency expands and contracts based on the level of generality or specificity.

Contemporary Mormons would provide a good example for Tolstoy's theory. They can't help to be caught up in the gay rights battle at the moment; it's beyond their powers. But they have a choice how they are going to wage that battle.

Of course the freedom of agency depends where you place in the heirarchy, which is what the SS officer is appealing to: he was in the SS, and so his freedom over how to wage the war was less than someone working in a munitions factory. A Stake President or Bishop has less freedom to oppose Prop 8 than a deacon. What if an apostle disagreed with the Church's position on Prop 8? What are his choices? Probably the same as if one of Hitler's generals who disagreed with the invasion of Poland.