July 10th, 2013
Galley Friend J.S. sends along this Slashfilm post on Orson Scott Card and Ender’s Game, which walks past outright hostility and up to the line of calling for a boycott of the film. Because Card views gay marriage the way Barrack Obama did the day before yesterday. When Obama was a hateful bigot. Obvs.
But that’s just par. What makes the post worth noting are two things.
(1) It’s another data point on the question of how magnanimous the same-sex marriage movement will be in victory. Here we have Card waving the white flag and abjectly asking that his views on traditional marriage be allowed to be privately held. And even that seems unacceptable.
(2) More importantly, this is a fine example of the victors writing history. In the course of his surrender, Card writes, “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.”
Slashfilm answers with the following:
First of all, just because marriage wasn’t being debated in the Supreme Court in 1984 doesn’t mean the gay rights movement didn’t exist back then.
Of course, it isn’t the case that gay marriage “wasn’t being debated in the Supreme Court in 1984.” Gay marriage wasn’t being debated anywhere. It wasn’t even being debated in the gay rights movement. The idea of same-sex marriage existing as a legal construct–let alone being a constitutionally-guaranteed right–didn’t emerge until sometime in the late-’80s/early ’90s and only appeared on the very fringes of anyone’s notice in 1993, when a Hawaiian court looked at the issue.
Most Americans didn’t really notice the gay marriage movement until 1996, when DOMA was signed into law by another notorious bigot, Bill Clinton.
It’s not just that the Right People (Clinton, Obama) get a pass on being hatemongers, while Orson Scott Card is History’s Greatest Monster. It’s instructive how we’re now re-writing history to suggest that the gay marriage movement has been with us forever as part of the eternal struggle for truth and justice.
Incidentally, this back-dating is helpful in further vilifying the Wrong People because it allows us to show that they aren’t just morally culpable for having the wrong opinions now, but are inferior for having had the wrong opinions then, too.
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You could say Clinton also kicked off the Gay Marriage demand when he put into law HIPPA which made health care givers unable to communicate health conditions with anyone who wasn’t “family”.
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I disagree that it criminalizes speech, but my money does not have to go to people and organizations that oppose every thing I hold dear. Why do conservatives buy products from organizations and people who oppose there ideas?
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I totally support your right and, indeed, your obligation to move immediately to a compost farm in Humboldt County and raise/film your own vegetables/orthodox sci-fi flicks
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Card is one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy writers in US history. He is right up there Clark and George RR Martin. Many of his fans wish he would just shut up and write. The positive effect of books and ideas on the culture is more beneficial than the occasional op ed that he writes.
I am a liberal, pro gay marriage etc. As much as I love his work his new stuff is not as much fun to read now that I know he is anti Gay. He has gay characters in his newer books and I see them as characters with a political message, and it ticks me off. When I read a book about the future I want to escape the present day issues.
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George RR Martin is considered one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy writers in US history?
US History is dead; long-live US history!
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Arthur C. Clarke is considered an American?
Open b0rders, I guess.
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Kinsley had a piece on that in The (New) New Republic… Saying he himself must have been a no-good heretic back before his act of grace clearing the landmark piece by “Sully” on festive nuptials
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Card is on the same level as Clarke? I’m not convinced…
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Andrew Sullivan was considered controversial in the gay community in the 90’s because of his support for gay marriage. Hell, up until 10 years ago the gay community was engaged in an active debate as to whether they wanted anything to do with marriage at all. Many were against the heteronormative features of gay marriage. Whatever we’ve heard in the last few years is probably indicative of the future, but it sure as hell isn’t representative of the past.
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Hey, you know who’s got a really backward view of gay rights and gay marriage? The Prophet Mohammed. Heroic gay people: Orson Scott Card wants to pray for your soul; Mohammed and his followers want you dead.
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Galley Friend J.E. July 11, 2013 at 11:27 am
This falls within the broader movement to criminalize speech that falls outside our ever-expanding envelope. It’s clear that the P.C. police, with no apparent sense of irony, would happily bring back the stocks as public punishment for such violations. There’s so much approved fascism that Eugene Genovese said being a Marxist on campus in the 1950s was far easier than being a conservative (which he wasn’t) today.