Bogglement

[michaelmjones]

I was made aware of this lovely little essay by Orson Scott Card, in which he makes his views on homosexuality, marriage, the family, and so forth rather clear. I'm speechless with disgust and disappointment.

Essay of Doooooom


Here's the great rebuttal/analysis someone posted: Smart Person Alert!

Comments

[djonn]

Yikes.

The "separate the art from the artist" issue is a tricky one, indeed. It's hard to argue that, say, Ender's Game stops being good because we now know something about the author that we didn't before. OTOH, it's also hard to argue that giving the author money (by buying his books) with which he can further his socio-political agenda isn't necessarily a Good Thing.

At times like this perhaps one can be vaguely thankful that the US doesn't have the Canadian "library pass-through" system whereby authors receive income based on a book's library circulation.

////

On a different front, what surprises me most about the exchange is that Card's socio-history is so bad -- and that the response failed to call him on it.

One of the prime arguments on the "anti" side of the gay marriage issue is that marriage has meant the same thing in all cultures since the dawn of time. This is, in a word, nonsense.

It's not surprising for Card to tread lightly on this point, given the historical (and contemporary) practice of polygamy in the Mormon and splinter-Mormon religious communities. But Mormonism is hardly the only religious/cultural system in which marriage has been defined more flexibly.

Moslem and Chinese cultures also supported polygamous marriage. Egyptian royal families sometimes married siblings to each other (though it's not entirely clear, I think, whether this was a matter of religious symbolism or lack of incest taboos). And Gaelic-Celtic legal codes recognized at least nine (sometimes ten) distinct sorts of marriage (the "brehon marriage" code). Greek and Roman culture also recognized and approved of homosexual unions, though they didn't necessarily grant them "marriage" status. A quick discussion of some of this appears here.

But it isn't necessary to document gay marriage in historic or prehistoric context to shoot down Card's point. Card's "Humpty Dumpty" logic tries to assert that "marriage" is a fixed, unchanging concept -- and the plain historical fact is that he's flat wrong.

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm still sorting through the thoughts on this one. I mean, I still think Ender's Game is classic. I think, though, I've lost any desire to interact with Card as a person. Probably all for the safest. :>