Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card issues plea for tolerance of his intolerance of gays
When will this persecution based solely on sexual orientation and his virulent hatred of it end?
Issuing a plea to set prejudices aside and adopt a more open-minded, progressive approach to accepting things solely on their inherent worth, Orson Scott Card has asked that people stop persecuting the upcoming Ender’s Game simply because he is a homophobe. Card—who has been anti-gay all of his life, despite propaganda that may suggest homophobia is a “choice”—has increasingly come under fire for his sociopolitical orientation, ever since coming out as a homophobe through statements such as “Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books… to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.” Over the years, Card’s homophobia has only grown prouder and more flamboyant, as the author continued to take aim at “dictator-judges” who would force laws granting marriage to “tragic genetic mix-ups.” And time and again, Card has been met with angry intolerance for his angry intolerance.
Recently, Card found himself ousted from a planned Adventures Of Superman story, as DC Comics nervously refused to let young readers come into contact with a known homophobe. Now that same discrimination against the hate-filled has threatened to affect the box office for Ender’s Game, with the LGBT group Geeks Out organizing a boycott that is, essentially, like the Stonewall police raid of sci-fi movies, except targeted against homophobes and costing—rather than humans their dignity—Orson Scott Card his money. And just like the Stonewall rioters, Card is here to say he’s finally had enough of being hounded simply for his way of life that involves decrying others’ way of life.
So Card has issued a statement to Entertainment Weekly repudiating the boycott, saying, “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.” After thus establishing that gay rights did not exist in 1984—gay people not having been invented until that one episode of thirtysomething—Card similarly invoked the way time inevitably gives way to change, and how we must all learn to publicly give the impression of accepting that change with bitter resignation, if we are to continue making money:
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.
Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether gay marriage proponents choose to show tolerance to the people whose intolerance is in their very nature—who cannot help but call for the destruction of any government that would support gay marriage, or suggest that “the dark secret” of homosexuality is that it’s often the product of “rape or molestation or abuse”—yet find themselves shamed for these uncontrollable urges, as society tells them they’re wrong.
Sadly for Card, we may not yet have reached that more enlightened era, when homophobes are allowed to live freely without fear of their movies suffering a slight dip in profits. Nevertheless, Card is here, he hates queers, and he suggests you get used to it in time for the movie’s premiere.
I'm tolerant of his intolerance in so much as I don't think it should be illegal to be a giant douche-wad, but I'm NEVER going to give money to people who I know are going to use it to spread hate.
Sorry.
No Chic Fil A, no Fox News, no Orson Scott Card movies.
I have met bigots, none decided that their bigotry was important enough to spend a fortune to spread it. I don't recall any homophobic subtext in the book, and as I said I read it just a couple years ago.
Still one of my favorite books!
