Orson Scott Card really wants you to watch Ender’s Game
An early boycott for Orson Scott Card’s book-to-movie adaptation Ender’s Game is in the works due to Card’s past homophobia.
Card has responded to the boycott thusly:
Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.
With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state.
Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.
An interesting response. It goes a step further than the Church’s response to the rulings by foretelling that Utah will eventually have same-sex marriage, and so, oh well, the battle is over with. “So, get over it, and see my movie!” he says. I wonder if he really expects public discourse to just bend to whatever is most profitable for him.
If he wants to be forgiven, he might want to consider apologizing and trying to make amends. At the very least, he could write a new piece for the Mormon Times retracting his earlier piece and explaining that now that “the gay marriage issue is moot,” people should just accept gay marriage in good faith, rather than trying to overthrow the government…
Does he really imagine that homophobia and a corresponding fight for gay rights did not exist in 1984? Is he really so ignorant that he knows nothing of Stonewall or the AIDS crisis?
I mean, obviously he is that ignorant, probably willfully so. But still, it’s remarkable.
In the essay linked to above where he wrote about why criminalized sodomy is good, he used a similar logic to suggest that he’s not homophobic:
I wonder if he would argue that it was not racist in 1966 to publicly say that interracial marriage was bad because the issue was “still in dispute.” But then in 1967, when the Court gave its ruling, that’s when such a view became racist and problematic to utter in public.
He really takes that 12th Article of Faith seriously — “…obeying, honoring, sustaining the law.” But, yeah, he really has no grasp on what homophobia is.
In other words, “Just because it wasn’t such a big deal to be as homophobic as I very publicly and aggressively was, it’s not fair to call me on my homophobia now, especially since I’m not willing to wage a losing battle all by myself.”
Card’s track record of virulent anti-gay activity is far more than “one little article written such a long time ago.” Card is still a member of the board of the anti-gay hate group National Organization for Marriage, and he is the author of a long string of anti-gay screeds, one of which promised to overthrow any government that offered marriage equality to its citizens. His writings are mostly *after* the 2003 Lawrence decision! See here, for example.
This isn’t a normal case of simple disagreement over politics. Card has spent decades demonizing gay people and their intimate relationships. Everyone can make up his or her own mind about whether to patronize Card’s commercial ventures. I and most people I know are opting out.
His last paragraph isn’t remotely championing the principle of tolerance. Rather, he’s showing his scorn for the concept of “tolerance” by petulantly complaining that if people pretend to be so “tolerant” then (to be consistent) they need to “tolerate” anything and everything, including all his anti-gay screeds (which he hasn’t taken back) and his crazy nonsense about overthrowing the government.
He seems to believe that taking his actions into account when forming an opinion about him is the opposite of “tolerance” — which shows that he doesn’t get it, and doesn’t want to.
Yeah, he’s not really interested in being forgiven or issuing an apology. He says “it will be interesting to see…” as if it’s all a kind of spectacle. One wonders why he responded to the boycott at all. Kind of silly that Entertainment Weekly described it as “plea.”
” I was also writing this essay to a conservative Mormon audience”
Umm, Sunstone is a conservative Mormon audience?
And his essay was “a liberal and tolerant view”
If he was being so liberal and tolerant, why were the big bad bullies trying to unrighteously deprive him of his freedom of speech without repercussions.
It seems Card takes his creative lying to real events involving a “conservative Mormon audience.” But he’s had practice. What issue of Sunstone was it that he guest edited, and practically everything in it was written by him under pseudonyms.
Via Joe. My. God. a couple of more reactions:
and:
When I was reading the David Gerrold reply and comments saw this–Star trek Phase 2:”Blood and Fire”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtifyhPScCw
Forget Abrams, this is actually good.