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Referring to Hawk’s #2, there is definitely the potential for abuse. My brother claimed he was one of the Lord’s annointed in order to get my parents to quit nagging him about something. I’ve seen some rather thin-skinned leaders cite this in order to gain carte blanche over their followers whilst avoiding criticism. D&C 121, anybody? 🙄 On the plane home today, I read the part in RSR around the time of the Kirtland temple dedication, and the brethren state pretty strongly in several passages that evil speaking of the Lord’s Annointed constituted vocal disagreement of the leaders or questioning their integrity. Of course, this was right around the time of the return from Zion’s Camp and apostacy among some very high ranking leaders and Joseph and the other leaders may have been speaking defensively. I’ve always interpreted it to mean vocal disagreement or disparagement of the general authorities, but I’ve never really thought local leaders carried quite the same mantle. It seems to me that joseph was initially comfortable with dissent until he was run out of town in Kirtland by people upset about the bank failure. Following that, Joseph came down harder on dissent and excommunicated some prominent members including Oliver Cowdery. Many of these former members were upset about consecration, and became persecutors in Missouri. Subsequent dissenters like William Law and John C Bennett (both former members of the first presidency) contributed to his martyrdom, at least indirectly (some say Bennett instigated the mob.)
Further dissension in Utah against Brigham continued to make evil speaking of the lords annointed a problem that I think has continued to this day. A pretty strong case can be made that evil speaking of Joseph contributed to his death.
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