Orson Scott Card Pleads 'Tolerance' For Ender's Game Movie 1448
interval1066 writes "A story in Wired describes Orson Scott Card's quest for tolerance in response to a boycott for Gavin Hood's film adaption of Ender's Game, saying that 'The gay marriage issue is moot' in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. Card is a long time anti-gay and defense of marriage activist. 'His concern, ostensibly, is that someone might be petty enough not to see his movie simply because he spent years lobbying for laws that treated certain people as less than human. The fallacy he employs here — that calling out hate-speech is intolerance on par with curtailing the human rights of others — is a favorite fallback of cowards and bullies, and a way of evading responsibility for the impact of their words and actions.' I guess he didn't see this film and the box-office importance of wide appeal coming, did he?"
problem mistated. (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
"Responding to reports of a nascent boycott against the upcoming movie version of his beloved 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game because of his stated opposition to same-sex marriage..."
Whoa, whoa, WHOA there cowboy. People aren't pissed off a Card because of his "stated opposition" to gay marriage. I don't give a rat's ass what most authors think or even what they say. The problem here is that he was so active in campaigns that were openly trying to strip the rights of others based on sexual orientation. People have the right to think what they want, but when they start trying to codify their prejudice into law THAT is where the problem starts.
hypocracy (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that there are number of groups on both sides of the isle that plead for equal rights for their believes, opinions and convictions when their cause is under attack, however they are just as eager to deny the rights, prosecute their political opponents whenever opportunity arises.
The hypocrisy present across entire political spectrum, btw. Left, Right, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Tea-partiers and Greens, and ironically Anarchists and Libertarians.
Popehat nails it again (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.popehat.com/2013/07/09/ive-decided-to-give-orson-scott-card-the-benefit-of-the-doubt/ [popehat.com]
less than human? (Score:4, Interesting)
How many authors (or chicken restaurant owners) would treat polygamists as "less than human" by supporting laws against plural marriage?
Tolerate whoever you like (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll go see a better movie by a better screenwriter instead, and I will enjoy the fact that I didn't contribute anything to that festering asshole's bank account all the same.
I'm glad he was dumb enough to remind people what a cunt he is.
BTW, his work is overrated anyway.
Re:Poison fruit (Score:5, Interesting)
If Al Qaeda came up with a cure for cancer, would we as a society start using it, or reject it as poisoned fruit?
Just as we accepted the medical knowledge unlocked by the nazi's during WWII http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html [jlaw.com] we would use the cure for cancer. The foundation of treatment for hypothermia was all determined through the torture and murder of jews by the NAZI's, and yet we use that information to save lives even today.
taking it apart (Score:4, Interesting)
The controversy is not – and never has been – about the content of the story. It's been about the author's political activities, which have been funded in part by the money he received for this film, and which will continue to be funded by additional income which he'll get if it's a big hit (e.g. a sequel).
Legal recognition of lesbian/gay marriage was already an issue in 1984. Couples had sued for the right to a civil marriage as early as 1971. Not that this is relevant, but it just shows that Card is either lying or doesn't know the history.
No it hasn't, and as a National Organization for [sic] Marriage board member, he knows this well. He unquestionably intends to keep fighting it. After the movie comes out.
This is probably correct; it depends on the Supreme Court. A bit baffling that this hasn't already happened, but that's the legal system dragging its feet, waiting for society to catch up.
Don't worry, Orson. No one is going to force you to get gay-married.
This is part of the Christian right's persecution complex, in which they view their declining dominance over American culture as an indication that they are about to become (and the more delusional among them thinking they already have been) a persecuted minority. Begging for "tolerance" of their intolerance is a tacit admission (whether they admit it or not) that they expect others to do to them as they've done to others.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your objection is that it has a message you disagree with. In that sense, I agree with Card. It is intolerance. And closed-mindedness. If you refuse to listen to any argument against what you believe in, you must believe in a lot of things that aren't true.
But I've read all his arguments. I've actually read them all. I went from being a huge Card fan to deciding he shall no longer see a cent of my money and I will no longer read his work. That's not closed-mindedness. He's had his pedestal for quite some time and I'm done with him. I'm not stripping him of his first amendment rights, he can go to the town square and scream himself hoarse for all I care. What I'm stripping him of is my hard earned money that he uses to spread that message on the internet and in his community.
Would you buy fruit from a KKK vendor? Would you pay for magazines spouting racism just to make sure you are covering all your bases and hearing all arguments of the issue? No. Because that issue is settled in your mind and you no longer want to financially support the other side. I feel the same way about homosexual marriage. And from what I've read he's not providing any original viewpoints on this issue. So the guy's not getting one more ounce of my resources and on top of it, I'll let anyone know who brings him up what he's said in his newsletters and websites about equal rights of United States citizens.
Believe it or not, KKK members cannot offer you much better arguments for racism than they could a hundred years ago. And for that I'm not stupid enough to accuse you of being closed minded because you ignore their message today.
Re:Tolerate whoever you like (Score:4, Interesting)
No love for Asimov?
Re:Really?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tolerate whoever you like (Score:2, Interesting)
I disagree. Ender's Game is a great coming of age novel, but it's by no means anything other than pulp sci-fi. Philip K. Dick, on the other hand...
Re:Really?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I do still feel there is something highly 'accidental' to the genius of Card's Ender's series, but I have read some criticisms that damn the books for being highly manipulative [ncsu.edu] in the way they persuade the audience to forgive Ender's actions:
"Card has spoken in interviews about his tropism for the story of the person who sacrifices himself for the community. This is the story, he tells us, that he has been drawn to tell again and again. For example, in justification of the scenes of violence in his fiction, Card told Publisher’s Weekly in 1990 that, “In every single case, cruelty was a voluntary sacrifice. The person being subjected to the torture was suffering for the sake of the community.” I find this statement astonishingly revealing. By “The person being subjected to the torture,” Card is not referring here to Stilson, Bonzo, or the buggers, who may well be sacrificed, but whose sacrifices are certainly not “voluntary.” Their deaths are not the voluntary sacrifices that draw Card’s concern. No, in these situations, according to Card the person being tortured is Ender, and even though he walks away from every battle, the sacrifice is his. In every situation where Ender wields violence against someone, the focus of the narrative’s sympathy is always and invariably on Ender, not on the objects of Ender’s violence. It is Ender who is offering up the voluntary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is the emotional price he must pay for physically destroying someone else. All the force of such passages is on the price paid by the destroyer, not on the price paid by the destroyed. “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” might well be the slogan of Ender’s Game."
Re:Wow, did he ever call it: (Score:4, Interesting)
People who oppose interacial marriages are branded as bigots too. It doesn't exactly take a gift of prophecy to predict that someone who "regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance" will be branded as a bigot, since that is the English word for that exact activity.
Mentally ill is a bit of a stretch though. Perhaps there's someone out there who feels that all people who nurse unreasonable hatreds are metally ill, but the sad truth is that this is a common human behavior.
Re:Really?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
By a quirk of history, this particular culture won and imposed it customs on everyone else.
There's a societal down-side to polygamy, one that needs STRONG cultural overrides to prevent. If (presumably) richer men are allowed multiple wives, that means that there are fewer wives for the rest of the men. You then end up with an excess of unmarried, non-parental young adult men, and being married and a parent is usually a calming influence. These single men are usually the first in the streets if things take even a tiny down-turn. We still see this in Arabic countries which allow polygamy, as well as countries where there's an imbalance of men and women, such as China and India (one-child policies as well as gender-based abortions responsible.
Up until late 19th century, the age of sexual/marriage majority matched being a biological adult.
That works when age of menarche is around 16-17 as it was in England until about the 1850s. This meant that a woman who was old enough to have children was taller and more experienced. Larger families also meant she was likely to have helped raise and take care of siblings. The average age in the US is currently ~12.5. Not enough time to grow the whole body, and not likely to have a lot of experience raising siblings.
Re:It's a Matter of Consent (Score:4, Interesting)
You are not correct. You misunderstand the concept of consent. As a concept, it ceases to exist when applied to non-sentient things. Consent is concept which only exists if the entities involved are considered to be sentient. I like to make a point of this partially from an academic interest, but it is critically important to understand the concept if you are to justify any legal premise which concerns interactions between entities.
Why is it important to realize that you cannot use consent as an argument for/against laws concerning the interaction between a sentient and non-sentient? You use the example that you cannot do something to a plant, because the plant cannot legally consent. Such an argument sounds plausible, but in reality it is nonsense. If imposition of a sentient's will on a non-sentient required consent, then you would never be able to interact with the non-sentient at all. You might argue that consent is only required when the interaction might be harmful, but that would be nonsense as well.
We don't require the consent of wheat to harvest it. We don't even require the consent of animals when we decide to kill them. The reason is that when it comes to property, consent is a concept which simply doesn't exist.
You can argue that something isn't property(the current benchmark is sentience), you can argue that property must be handled in a particular manner (animal cruelty laws for example) but you can't argue that actions taken against property is subject to the concept of consent.
Re:Really?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me ask you this: how does 2 guys or 2 women getting "married" affect you in any way?
It offends me.
How does drilling in ANWAR affect you in any way? How does a woman having or being denied an abortion in Texas affect you in any way? How does taxing rich people affect you in any way? I can do this all day, but I think you get the point. So don't give me that "how does it affect you" bullshit until you can answer these:
How does it affect you if the government calls your relation a civil union vs a marriage? Can you not have a wedding? Can you not wear a ring and tell everyone you are married? How does it make what you have any different?
The only difference I can see is that a civil union does not make me offended. But that's your whole point isn't it? You want to offend me and all Christians because you hate all Christians. Never mind that Muslims hang gays on the streets, they deserve to be heard and have their religious freedom, we must offend all Christians. And that's exactly why it will be held in a church. Democrats have already blocked a law protecting Chaplains in the US military from refusing to perform same sex marriages. How long do you think it will be before that same-sex couple sues the Catholic Church demanding "equal rights" to have a chapel wedding?
This isn't about equal rights. This is about getting even for perceived wrongs done to you. Tell me again how I am the bigot?
I don't believe that you have any gay friends
My mother owns a beauty salon that I worked in from before I was old enough to see over the counter. I know it's cliche to assume that gay me do hair, but it's a cliche for a reason. You have no idea how many gay friends I have. I have kinda grown up around them. I know what they are like, how they feel and what they are all about. And I feel they deserve equal rights under the law. But they do NOT have equal rights under religion. You don't have to like it. You don't have to be in a religion. But since freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Constitution, government has to respect it. By the way, can you tell me marriage is guaranteed in the Constitution? I can't find it anywhere.
I don't believe you have any religious friends. If you did, you wouldn't think they are all bigots.
And marriage is not just a Christian concept. It certainly predates Christianity. It appears to predate the earliest mentions of the Jews as far as the Bible goes. I would even say that the Bible agrees that civilization itself predates marriage as there is no mention in the Bible of Adam and Eve ever getting married. That doesn't mean shit as on July4, 1776, marriage was strictly a religious rite and carried no weight whatsoever in American law. It was, however being regulated by Jewish law in God knows what BC. So it was a religious rite for thousands of years before it was ever recognized by the United States Government. Sorry, but those are the facts.
Re:Marriage (Score:4, Interesting)
Marriage is a religious rite. Government has no business regulating or even recognizing a religious rite.
Well, that's how it should be and that's how it has been marketed politically; however, the truth really comes out when one considers the following situations:
1) If two people have a marriage ceremony in a church without a marriage license, are they married? (no)
2) If two people obtain a marriage license and then have an irreligious solemnization ceremony with a justice of the peace, are they married? (yes)
Like you said, I just don't like government redefining what has been a religious concept a thousand years before western culture, much less America or American law.
I agree entirely, but the concept of marriage got hijacked by the state hundreds of years ago (to varying degrees, culminating in what we have today)—the "redefinition" happened long before we were born. Now, the government just allows the window-dressing of an optional religious ceremony (for those who desire it) in order to placate those who mistakenly believe modern marriage is a religious rite.
The fundamental problem with a legally-recognized union is that the government is allowed to change the terms after the commitment is made. Married/unioned individuals delegate to the state the ability to define (and redefine at whim) what the individuals' responsibilities are to one another, whether their interpersonal contractual agreements are enforceable, etc.
It was an epiphany to me when I realized that my only reticence to a permanent, exclusive commitment to my partner was due to these considerations. I had zero concerns about spending the rest of our lives together, better/worse, forsaking all others, etc, etc. However, I wouldn't agree to any other type of significant contract where another party has the ability to unilaterally change the contract after I had signed, so why would I allow this with the most important relationship in my life?
Besides, it's just offensive that the state implicitly wants to be a third party in our relationship. So, we rejected that notion entirely.
However, there is a purpose to the government recognition of marriage, specifically taxes, shared property ownership, power of attorney, inheritance rights and so on
There are very few "features" of a legal union that cannot be replicated via individual contractual agreements. Inheritance, property ownership, power of attorney, etc are all trivial to handle (this makes sense, because you can elect to partner/delegate these to *anyone*). Joint filing of taxes is the main unresolvable issue, but that is a flaw in our legal system: why should two people in a relationship have a substantially different tax treatment than two individuals?