By: Jim Taylor

The trouble with hypothetical situations is that they aren't real. Yet. And so campaigning politicians regularly shrug off questions about how they might act in hypothetical situations.
           But hypothetical situations have an uncomfortable way of becoming real.
           Ask Orville Nichols, a marriage commissioner in Saskatchewan.
           Nichols is a devout Baptist. Now 70 years old, he became a marriage commissioner in 1983. As a marriage commissioner, he performs civil weddings -- which, back then, only happened between male/female couples.
           Then Saskatchewan changed the rules.
           In 2005, two men who can only be identified as M.J. and B.R. wanted to get married in a civil ceremony. The first commissioner they contacted was Orville Nichols.
           He didn't try to stop them from getting married. He referred them to another marriage commissioner. But he said that he himself could not do it. It went against his religious principles.
           The couple lodged a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. The tribunal will render its decision in March or April. Nichols could face a $5000 fine.
           Similar hypothetical situations become equally real for doctors who are opposed in principle to abortion, but are expected to provide it anyway.

THE RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE
           What about members of the military? Do they sign over their consciences when they sign up?
           In the U.S., First Lieutenant Ehren Watada had no hesitation about performing his duties as a member of the Army. He did not desert; he did not go AWOL; he did not disobey orders -- except one. He served in Korea. He was willing to serve in Afghanistan. But he refused to board a plane to fight what he believed was an unconstitutional and illegal war in Iraq.
           Lt. Watada's court martial ended inconclusively on February 7, when the judge declared a mistrial on a legal technicality.
           Thus no precedent was set -- and perhaps never will be -- because Watada probably cannot be re-tried on the same charge.
Which leaves the issue of individual conscience in legal limbo.
           The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission argued that commissioners are required, by law, to provide civil wedding services. As agents of the state, they have no choice.
           "It's a service which has no religious connotations whatsoever," said a Commission lawyer.
           State agents become, in effect, robots. Like bank machines -- except that instead of getting cash after you enter your credentials, you get a marriage certificate.

THE RIGHT TO SAY NO
           As a consumer, I don't like it when some person who is supposed to serve me -- a civil servant, a corporate clerk, an electrical contractor -- decides, for whatever reason, not to.
           But I like it even less when any person is told he or she has no right to have a conscience.
           Personally, I value my freedom not to support government-sponsored gambling. I value my freedom to donate to trouble-making causes. I value my freedom to differ from the established policies of my church, my community, or my government.
           If I value those for myself, I don't see how I can deny the same rights and freedoms to a marriage commissioner, a doctor, a soldier, or an editor.
           Yes, even an editor. On the surface, editing might seem to have nothing to do with ethics or principles. Surely, editing is just a matter of putting commas and apostrophes in the right place, isn't it?
           But consider a hypothetical situation my colleague Gilda Mekler and I posed to a gathering of editors, some 20 years ago.
           Suppose you were an editor, in Germany, in 1925. And your publisher assigned you to edit Adolf Hitler's draft manuscript for Mein Kampf? Would you
* refuse the assignment, and accept any consequences?
* accept the assignment, but try to sabotage it?
* accept the assignment, but hope to modify the author's aims by probing his prejudices and negotiating amendments?
* accept the assignment, and make the author's words as effective as possible?
           I was reminded of that debate by Gilda's untimely death, apparently of an embolism, on February 7, by coincidence the same day as Watada's mistrial.

NO CHOICE?
           Not surprisingly, the assembled editors did not agree on what they would do. As I recall the discussion, few argued for rejecting the assignment outright. Most felt their responsibility was to the text -- whatever that meant -- not to the author or the reader.
           The context was not totally hypothetical. Similar situations come up whenever an author endorses gender prejudice, for example. When corporate advertising promotes hazardous products. When a doctoral thesis plagiarizes shamelessly.
           For Gilda, the discussion must have been a particularly poignant. She was Jewish. To accept that hypothetical assignment would have meant collaborating with a mindset intent on murdering millions of her own people; to reject it could risk her own survival.
           But the critics of Orville Nicholls and Ehren Watada would argue that, as an agent of the state, she would have had no choice.

SWALLOWING SCRUPLES
           Most of us rarely have to face situations where the law -- or an employer's policies -- conflict so directly with our consciences.
           But many professionals have to face such situations. Priests, ministers, and social workers hear, in confidence, about activities they find appalling. Lawyers have to defend the indefensible. Doctors are pressured to perform procedures they consider unwise, even dangerous.
           And researchers are assigned to experiments -- from unlocking the secrets of atoms to manipulating the genes of common corn -- which could lead to nuclear or environmental disaster.
           Too many, I fear, swallow their scruples. Only a few, like Orville Nichols, have the courage to say "No."
           In 2005, Nichols launched his own complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, claiming the government discriminated against him by requiring him to perform same-sex marriages. His complaint was dismissed.
           I don't agree with Nichols' views on same-sex marriages. But I support his right to listen to his conscience.
           Our society needs people like Orville Nichols, if only to remind us that we are not robots.
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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