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Wider World Realizing Orson Scott Card is Hateful and Crazy

May 3rd, 2009

Overthrow of the government and criminalization of homosexuality, you know, Card’s normal positions.  He is getting some press by being associated with one of these conservative marriage defense organizations, but his positions are much deeper than what the public will tolerate in this arena.

Anyway, a bunch of quotes from Card’s articles that makes him out to be the monster he seems to be when it comes to these issues.

It’s sad.

I still don’t understand how someone can have enough empathy to write characters different from himself, and hold these positions.  I mean, Ender would have loved the gays before he destroyed them.  Card isn’t able to love them or destroy them.

And where does all this hate come from?  His Morman religion.  If he has the right to it, and to talk like this, the rest of us have the right to call him out for what he is.  A hate-filled man without a healthy perception of reality, tolerance, or even humanity.

I’ll still buy and recommend some of his books, and wonder at how it can be that he wrote them.  Maybe I’ll learn something about humanity from that exercise.

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9 Responses to “Wider World Realizing Orson Scott Card is Hateful and Crazy”

  1. Rebecca Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    I think it’s age, honestly. If you read Folk of the Fringe, at the time he wrote that, he clearly had a progressive view of the religion (or at least, some of his viewpoint characters did, and he wrote them convincingly and sympathetically).

    For me, it’s nearly uniform–I like his earlier books, and his later books either have really wretched characterization or make me want to spit nails. (Usually both.)

  2. Bronwyn Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    Personally speaking and no offence, I refuse to financially support bigots and racists, no matter how talented they may be. The world’s grown too small to feed/finance hatemongers.

  3. Lionel L. Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    I used to be a huge fan until I learned the man was a bigot. I’ll not put another penny towards the purchase of his works.

    Mr. Card has every right to believe whatever he wants to believe but I have the right, and I think obligation, to not support him in those beliefs.

  4. Chris Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Thanks for bringing this to people’s attention. I’ll always love Enders Game despite Card’s political behavior, but I’d agree with Rebecca’s earlier comment about his earlier versus later work. Anyone read Empire? What an embarrassment that was. Bill O’ Reilly showing up in the novel? Gimme a break. -Chris, M-Brane SF

  5. russ Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 2:00 am

    I too don’t want to financially support or reward a guy who’s so influential and hate-mongering.

    There’s far more good literature out there than I could ever read in my life. It’s not like I’m depriving myself by not buying Card’s books. I doubt I’d enjoy them much anyway now: having read so many of his hateful idiotic essays, my knowledge about the author would be too distracting and irritating.

  6. Mike Brotherton Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 3:10 am

    Well, all other things being equal, I’ll pick a different book than a new Card to buy, too. I agree that knowledge of him and his ideas would be hard to totally ignore while reading, if only to scrutinize the text to see if it works. I still think anyone reading sf should read Ender’s Game and/or Ender’s Shadow, and his books about writing are very good and I suggest Characters and Viewpoint to new writers.

    And Card put BILL O’REILLY in a novel. Sheesh…

  7. Bryan Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 10:41 am

    It’s not his Mormon religion. The LDS church actually has a fairly nuanced, compassionate position on same-sex attraction. But in spite of this, certain members of the church decide to be particularly vocal and harsh with their prejudices. Us moderate Mormons tend not to make as much noise. But we’re out here.

    I personally believe that 100 years from now, Mormons as a whole will look at their current attitudes toward homosexuality with the same embarrassment that they look at their attitudes toward race from 100 years ago. But we’ll see.

  8. harold Says:
    May 16th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    I stopped supporting Card financially around 2000 when he said on his blog he’d rather vote for his dog for president than for Al Gore. And of course, he’s gotten MUCH worse since then. Once upon a time, I bought a copy of Folk of the Fringe as a gift for a nice LDS physics/astronomy student I was working with. Never again as I wouldn’t want to lead someone to his more recent rants. Bryan above is only partly right: there are moderate Mormons (as he and my former student show) but the church leadership is as bigotted today as they were before the miracle that told a church president that blacks were not actually sub-human anymore. Don’t forget that it was the LDS leadership that had a huge hand in Prop 8 in CA.

  9. Caroline Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 1:52 am

    Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.

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