Ender's Game Author Asks For Tolerance After Boycott Threat

[Lightknight]

However, there ARE people who aren't just trying to defend what they feel is a religious institution. People who just hate gays. Nothing OSC has led me to believe he's one of those, but we should certainly come down hard on actual hate speech which this was not.

His 'essays' (read: poorly structured, unfocused, inarticulate rants; look them up if you're unfamiliar) and role in NOM, trying to deny gay couples the right to get the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, don't strike you as illustrating that he hates people for being gay? (Or, if not hate, inexplicably and obstinately believes they should not be entitled to the same rights as the rest of the country because they are gay.)

NOM is not a religious organization and OSC's 'argument' was never religious in nature. If it sounds like I'm overstating it, look it up.

Believing that marriage is an institution is between a man and a woman with the goal of rearing the next generation (as many people believe and as religions have traditionally taught) is not necessarily hating gays. It is making a statement about marriage itself rather than saying that gays are evil and need to be hurt. That isn't hate speech. Hatespeech requires an element of vilification or call to do harm. Hatespeech is not merely offensive speech. People often confuse the two. The argument I've heard most often is that marriage is "this", not "that". Not that gays are evil and shouldn't have access to it because they're bad or something. Though I'm sure some people do that and those people should be treated like they're committing hate speech. It's no different than saying a blind person is evil for not being able to see like the rest of us.

Side note: Is there actually some religion somewhere that has its "definition" of marriage being changed? ...and why would that matter? If you think [your deity/whatever of choice] regards you and your partner(s) as a special union, do other people's [holy/spiritual] unions affect yours?
Or is the religious issue simply something like "We have traditionally done X this way and think it would be bad to change it because of Y reason."? If that's the case, debate away. And here's a rather good article: http://religiomunda.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/some-reflections-on-scotus-doma-and-christian-concern/

I'll make a side comment right here. Hopefully you're just using ambiguous pronouns here and don't literally mean me when you say "you". I am extremely pro-gays getting this license. My entire purpose for making this sentiment of changing the name is to help people understand that the government has no control over the religious institution of marriage. The two are separate things. That's important, both for religious individuals and particularly for individuals who believe in the practice of separating church and state. So I fully agree that other people getting a piece of paper from the government that says they're married has nothing to do with any religion's marriage ceremony besides the name. However, the marriage license WAS estasblished with the intention of legislating who may be married. Particularly, it was used to prevent black and white people from getting married by the church. To say that the original intention of the marriage license wasn't to legislate religious marriage is a significant error. Today, however, the purpose is a clerical filing of a union between individuals that can be performed by any notary. For example, I like to say that my best man married me as I had him notarize the marriage certificate and not the pastor of the ceremony.

Christians, Muslims, and Jews see marriage as a binding of a man and woman by God. That is "marriage" to them and they are a non-trivial number of people. Their scriptures all maintain that marriage is between a man and a woman. So to tread on this is to dismiss their faiths. To maintain the same name for a license that is no longer used to legislate religious ceremonies is only maintaining that perception. That changing who gets that is opening up the individual's faith to have to accept that. This is creating an uphill battle that doesn't need to be fought. I believe that the marriage license should be done away with and replaced with something like a civil union that everyone (hetero or homo) gets. The same rights as before, just a different name. A rose by any other, if you will.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Too be fair though, Ender's Game is one of the most overtly gay books I have ever read. Little naked boys wrestling each other in the shower...

 

[Silvanus]

I am so tired of the whole, being gay is not a choice. WHAT? Of course it is. Being straight is a choice, being a Morman is a choice. Everything we do in life is about choice. We are born blank slates and OUR perception of beauty and companionship develops based on our experiences.

There is consensus, both scientific and psychiatric, that sexuality is not a choice. This is NOT the same as saying it's there from birth.

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx

...most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf

(See section 2 for efforts to "change" sexuality).

http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ned_Katz:_%22Sex_Is_in_Our_Heads,_Not_in_Our_Genes,%22_April_2,_1995

(Katz, who has done numerous studied himself into the subject, explains why the "Constructionist" argument does not mean that it boils down to choice).

...arise in us as we interact with others within a particular society. Our desires are neither simply determined, nor simply a choice

http://www.alliant.edu/cspp/about-cspp/cspp-research-institutes/rockway-institute/experts.php

(The CSPP lists conversion therapies & claims of "ex-gay" groups as a major field of study for psychological reasons, though recognises the lack of validity in their claims).

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/6/1827.long

The mechanisms for the development of a particular sexual orientation remain unclear, but the current literature and most scholars in the field state that one's sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be heterosexual or homosexual

(Above link is supported in this claim by the Journal of Adolescent Healthcare).

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Submission%20to%20the%20Church%20of%20England.pdf

It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment. Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice.

A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client?s sexual orientation. This can be deeply damaging. Although there is now a number of therapists and organisation in the USA and in the UK that claim that therapy can help homosexuals to become heterosexual, there is no evidence that such change is possible.

http://www.psychiatry.org/mental-health/people/lgbt-sexual-orientation

(The American Psychiatric Association, distinct from the American Psychological Association which I linked above. In the above link, they state there is "no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy").

The conclusion reached by scientists who have investigated the origins and stability of sexual orientation is that it is a human characteristic that is formed early in life, and is resistant to change. Scientific evidence on the origins of homosexuality is considered relevant to theological and social debate because it undermines suggestions that sexual orientation is a choice.

http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Amer_Psychological_Assn_Amicus_Curiae_Brief.pdf

Sexual orientation has proved to be generally impervious to interventions intended to change it, which are sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy". No scientifically adequate research has shown that such interventions are effective or safe.

(The above statement is supported also by the Counselling Association Governing Council).

There is significant agreement that one does not choose ones sexual orientation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691850/pdf/15539346.pdf

(Discussion of biological factors aside from genetics by the Royal Society, as well as the persistence of genetic behaviours that seem to be an evolutionary hindrance).

 

[Lightknight]

Too be fair though, Ender's Game is one of the most overtly gay books I have ever read. Little naked boys wrestling each other in the shower...

I considered posting this. I mean, male on male kissing, Rose the Nose animating his junk with what I assume is a tablet, and everything else.

 

[FiveSpeedf150]

To many people "tolerance" is a one-way street.

 

[Griffolion]

The two are separate things. That's important, both for religious individuals and particularly for individuals who believe in the practice of separating church and state. So I fully agree that other people getting a piece of paper from the government that says they're married has nothing to do with any religion's marriage ceremony besides the name.

Pretty much my view, except for your thoughts on changing the name.

I think the marriage license, as given by a state, needs to be for any combination of individuals. Everyone get's it, and for the purpose of legally binding two sets of possessions etc together, everyone needs it.

From that point onwards, you're married, and according to the state, all who fall under the category are completely, uniformly equal in their rights.

After this point, if you wish for a religious ceremony extra to the legal, state union, according to your beliefs (as formally presenting yourselves for marriage "before your God" is something held in high regard in many religions, regardless of what the state in which you find yourself has already granted to you), then you can make attempt to have one. If you're denied for whatever reason, that's that religious institution's prerogative to do so. Your rights have not been affected as a legally bound couple. You're still married. Besides, where one institution of a religion may deny you, another (example, another denomination of church, another kind of synagogue, another kind of mosque, etc) may have [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_and_loosing"]bound/loosed[/a] their rules of scripture differently, thus accepting the petition for a religious ceremony.

Denying a gay couple marriage for whatever belief/reason in a pluralistic society is wrong, as chances are, they don't hold that same belief / accept that line of reasoning to be correct. Conversely, threatening any religious institution with a revocation of right or licence to marry couples on the grounds of their beliefs not being compatible with the performing of marriage on a gay couple inside a society where the performance/or lack thereof of the marriage has absolutely no bearing on that couple's rights or opportunity for recognised marriage outside of that religious institution, sails incredibly close to the same winds of intolerance, [a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A+bigotry"]bigotry[/a], and oppressive force that is found in the people who practice the acts of the first sentence of this paragraph.

TLDR: In my opinion, denying gay couples marriage is wrong. Forcing religious institutions at legislative gunpoint(which is what the threat of marriage performance licence revocation is) to marry a couple that is against their personal beliefs is wrong. Regardless of what irks you in this situation, a fair balance of ruling must be struck for all parties concerned.

 

[bravetoaster]

Believing that marriage is an institution is between a man and a woman with the goal of rearing the next generation (as many people believe and as religions have traditionally taught) is not necessarily hating gays. It is making a statement about marriage itself rather than saying that gays are evil and need to be hurt.

I fully agree. If someone's talking strictly about religion, there's no reason for anyone (outside that religion, at least) to get upset over debating who can or cannot marry and under what circumstances.

Hatespeech is not merely offensive speech. People often confuse the two. The argument I've heard most often is that marriage is "this", not "that". Not that gays are evil and shouldn't have access to it because they're bad or something. Though I'm sure some people do that and those people should be treated like they're committing hate speech. It's no different than saying a blind person is evil for not being able to see like the rest of us.

Again--very well stated.

I don't know what's going on in Card's head, so I cannot speak to whether or not he thinks being gay makes you evil (anyone who thinks such a thing is simply wrong), but he has argued that, if you are gay, the United States Government should not grant you the right to legally marry the person you love (and thus deny you equal rights under the law). Card's (most infamous?) essay on the matter essentially argued (implicitly or explicitly--I can't recall which and will not intentionally subject myself to such poor writing a second time) that, if you are gay, you cannot raise healthy children, and that the way you feel and who you love does not matter if it's not someone of the opposite sex, and you do not deserve equal rights.

My understanding of "hate speech" is more that it's a specifically "speech that advocates or encourages violent acts or crimes of hate / speech that creates a climate of hate or prejudice, which may in turn foster the commission of hate crimes" (why, yes, I am stealing the NTIA definition from wikipedia), so I doubt Card's rants qualify as hate speech (I'm not a lawyer, can't even pretend to be one, so if someone wants to explain otherwise, please go ahead), but they do illustrate two important things: 1) he's not actually discussing religion (otherwise the government and being able to legally marry would never come up, much less be the main focus) and 2) his "argument" is flimsy and built upon a tower a bullshit.

Hopefully you're just using ambiguous pronouns here and don't literally mean me when you say "you".

Correct--I meant "you" as a theoretical person in the example, not you, Lightknight (I don't know you, personally, so I am not going to assume that I know your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or much of anything else about you). Sorry for the ambiguity.

 

[theApoc]

I am so tired of the whole, being gay is not a choice. WHAT? Of course it is. Being straight is a choice, being a Morman is a choice. Everything we do in life is about choice. We are born blank slates and OUR perception of beauty and companionship develops based on our experiences.

There is consensus, both scientific and psychiatric, that sexuality is not a choice. This is NOT the same as saying it's there from birth.

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx

...most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf

(See section 2 for efforts to "change" sexuality).

http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ned_Katz:_%22Sex_Is_in_Our_Heads,_Not_in_Our_Genes,%22_April_2,_1995

(Katz, who has done numerous studied himself into the subject, explains why the "Constructionist" argument does not mean that it boils down to choice).

...arise in us as we interact with others within a particular society. Our desires are neither simply determined, nor simply a choice

http://www.alliant.edu/cspp/about-cspp/cspp-research-institutes/rockway-institute/experts.php

(The CSPP lists conversion therapies & claims of "ex-gay" groups as a major field of study for psychological reasons, though recognises the lack of validity in their claims).

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/6/1827.long

The mechanisms for the development of a particular sexual orientation remain unclear, but the current literature and most scholars in the field state that one's sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be heterosexual or homosexual

(Above link is supported in this claim by the Journal of Adolescent Healthcare).

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Submission%20to%20the%20Church%20of%20England.pdf

It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment. Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice.

A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client?s sexual orientation. This can be deeply damaging. Although there is now a number of therapists and organisation in the USA and in the UK that claim that therapy can help homosexuals to become heterosexual, there is no evidence that such change is possible.

http://www.psychiatry.org/mental-health/people/lgbt-sexual-orientation

(The American Psychiatric Association, distinct from the American Psychological Association which I linked above. In the above link, they state there is "no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy").

The conclusion reached by scientists who have investigated the origins and stability of sexual orientation is that it is a human characteristic that is formed early in life, and is resistant to change. Scientific evidence on the origins of homosexuality is considered relevant to theological and social debate because it undermines suggestions that sexual orientation is a choice.

http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Amer_Psychological_Assn_Amicus_Curiae_Brief.pdf

Sexual orientation has proved to be generally impervious to interventions intended to change it, which are sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy". No scientifically adequate research has shown that such interventions are effective or safe.

(The above statement is supported also by the Counselling Association Governing Council).

There is significant agreement that one does not choose ones sexual orientation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691850/pdf/15539346.pdf

(Discussion of biological factors aside from genetics by the Royal Society, as well as the persistence of genetic behaviours that seem to be an evolutionary hindrance).

Here is the FULL context of your quote from the first source provided:

"What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation."

Reread that statement, and the WHOLE sentence not just the tail end. How you grow up, the types of people you encounter, a plethora of things come into play. Just as they do when people "choose" to like blue over red. Vanilla over chocolate. What seems to be in consensus is that sexual orientation is generally not a conscious choice, but there is nothing stating that anyone person is born one way or another. The fact that once people have made a choice, conscious or not, they are not readily swayed to make the opposite choice does not in and of itself prove the idea that we pop out one way or the other.

Semantics aside. One persons PREFERENCE is no more right or wrong than another persons. SOCIETY determines what is good or bad, acceptable or not. Circumventing the will of the people, NO MATTER HOW MISGUIDED THEY MAY BE, is never the solution. If society decides this should not be an issue, guess what, it won't be. Crying to the Fed to try and force people into acceptance is never going to be the answer and only serves to widen the gap between the sides.

 

[Guiltyone]

All in all, I'm really glad to see so much comments separating Card's public persona from his books, and other calmly expressing their views. Whether you think that he deserves tolerance or not, show it, because when tolerance is denied due to someone "not deserving" it really scarry bigotry, the silent, most powerful one is born.

Yes, Card was an asshole. That much won't change. But by discriminating against the discriminator, we change nothing. If anything, we become just as bad as they do. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how politically incorrect it is, and the minute we start trying to destroy people for that is the minute we are no longer a free and open society.

And to me, that is more important than any other legal declaration.

Ok. Do you guys really think that boycotting is discrimination? Or am I just reading this really poorly?

I do think that boycotting Ender's Game is wrong.

I don't know, maybe it's a cultural thing. For me, boycott is a very strong word. I live in Russia, and although I was born after USSR, I was still surrounded by it's culture as a child and teenager. Much of Soviet movies and literature are naive and propagandistic, promoting blind idealistic righteousness that often included boycotting some poor individual. And oh boy boycotts are SCARRY. It'a a form of shunning, an ostracizing of a person from society. In ancient world exile was considered to be punishment vastly more cruel than death, and only worst of criminals deserved it. So when someone decides that he or she won't pay any money to Card, I can understand that, although personally I think that rejecting Ender's Game, a brilliant book that judges evil of xenophobia and promotes value of empathy, is a big mistake.
But "boycotting" Card because of his religious beliefs, no matter how backwards they are, is something very different. As it was stated by other people in this topic, boycott is something different. It's not a personal choice, it's a societal, сommunal act of deliberately hurting someone.
We are honestly better than that.

 

[Silvanus]

Here is the FULL context of your quote from the first source provided:

"What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation."

Reread that statement, and the WHOLE sentence not just the tail end. How you grow up, the types of people you encounter, a plethora of things come into play. Just as they do when people "choose" to like blue over red. Vanilla over chocolate. What seems to be in consensus is that sexual orientation is generally not a conscious choice, but there is nothing stating that anyone person is born one way or another. The fact that once people have made a choice, conscious or not, they are not readily swayed to make the opposite choice does not in and of itself prove the idea that we pop out one way or the other.

I have read the sources I gave; I wouldn't have posted them otherwise.

That is fully in tune with what I said. I never said sexuality is purely nature; I never claimed nurture played no role; I never claimed you're born one way or the other; I never claimed anything of the sort.

I simply said it isn't a choice. On that, there is consensus, and that is completely understandable alongside the entirety of what you just quoted. The APA even state as much. Simply because environmental factors and life experiences may play a role does not contradict this in any way.

 

[Lightknight]

The two are separate things. That's important, both for religious individuals and particularly for individuals who believe in the practice of separating church and state. So I fully agree that other people getting a piece of paper from the government that says they're married has nothing to do with any religion's marriage ceremony besides the name.

Pretty much my view, except for your thoughts on changing the name.

Without changing the name of the license people will not understand that the government isn't legislating a religious institution and future laws may be applied which do legislate actual religious practices. Renaming the license to something else like Civil Union (that everyone gets) would side step that issue by means of clarification. It's just a simple disambiguation. The government can't change what religions call marriage, but they can change what they call the union. As long as the two are synonymous we will continue to run into the same problem over and over again because people aren't seeing it as a simple legal union, they're seeing it as a religious practice under attack. Ignorant or not, it has the same effect on both sides. Gays don't get the rights they deserve and the spiritually minded feel oppressed as well. That's a completely unnecessary powder keg just to keep around a religious term and to keep an area where the government appears to be fulfilling the role of church (because this is why the license exists at all, to legislate who can get married).

I fully agree. If someone's talking strictly about religion, there's no reason for anyone (outside that religion, at least) to get upset over debating who can or cannot marry and under what circumstances.

And that's part of the problem. Because of the confusion over the use of the term "marriage" for this kind of civil union, people think it is talking about religion. So the ambiguity of the term blurs the line.

Again--very well stated.

Thank you! Your posts are clearly thought out and also well-worded.

I don't know what's going on in Card's head, so I cannot speak to whether or not he thinks being gay makes you evil (anyone who thinks such a thing is simply wrong), but he has argued that, if you are gay, the United States Government should not grant you the right to legally marry the person you love (and thus deny you equal rights under the law). Card's (most infamous?) essay on the matter essentially argued (implicitly or explicitly--I can't recall which and will not intentionally subject myself to such poor writing a second time) that, if you are gay, you cannot raise healthy children, and that the way you feel and who you love does not matter if it's not someone of the opposite sex, and you do not deserve equal rights.

Implicit is implied, explicitly is direct/blatantly/outright. Here, have a tictac (implying your breath smells). Have a tictac, your breath smells (explicit statement of such).

This is actually a time honored argument. It hinges, as I stated earlier, on the point of marriage being believed to be (by OSC and many others) an institution is between a man and a woman with the goal of rearing the next generation. That a gay couple cannot successfully reproduce at the moment (science has recently figured out how to create an egg from the skin cells of males... so...) is a contention they hold. The common response to this regards couples who are infertile for whatever reason. But that comes back to the man and woman bit.

I maintain that whether or not they're going to openly say it that this comes down to a cultural and religious mindset rather than the intellectual debate they try to pose it in.

My understanding of "hate speech" is more that it's a specifically "speech that advocates or encourages violent acts or crimes of hate / speech that creates a climate of hate or prejudice, which may in turn foster the commission of hate crimes" (why, yes, I am stealing the NTIA definition from wikipedia), so I doubt Card's rants qualify as hate speech (I'm not a lawyer, can't even pretend to be one, so if someone wants to explain otherwise, please go ahead), but they do illustrate two important things: 1) he's not actually discussing religion (otherwise the government and being able to legally marry would never come up, much less be the main focus) and 2) his "argument" is flimsy and built upon a tower a bullshit.

If one, as many do, believes the marriage license to relate to the traditional/religious institution of marriage, then one need not bring up religion to still be defending one's religion.

Please bear in mind that my entire argument here is that a marriage license has nothing to do with the religious institution even though people think it is. So of course I believe any argument regarding it to be flimsy just by accepting the faulty premise. People who think this won't come out and say, "I don't want this because my religion is against it." But that's what they're thinking and all just because of how the term is used.

 

[Griffolion]

Without changing the name of the license people will not understand that the government isn't legislating a religious institution and future laws may be applied which do legislate actual religious practices. Renaming the license to something else like Civil Union (that everyone gets) would side step that issue by means of clarification. It's just a simple disambiguation. The government can't change what religions call marriage, but they can change what they call the union. As long as the two are synonymous we will continue to run into the same problem over and over again because people aren't seeing it as a simple legal union, they're seeing it as a religious practice under attack. Ignorant or not, it has the same effect on both sides. Gays don't get the rights they deserve and the spiritually minded feel oppressed as well. That's a completely unnecessary powder keg just to keep around a religious term and to keep an area where the government appears to be fulfilling the role of church (because this is why the license exists at all, to legislate who can get married).

You make some really good points there.

To be honest, I couldn't care less what the state may call it. I would just worry about changing the semantics there, and religious individuals would still claim to be "married" (as per the affirmations of there respective ceremonies), while others may simply be "in legal union" (or whatever it would be). There may arise a culture of "married" is still better than "in union", despite what the laws unequivocally say.

My personal thought on the matter is that a state drawing a line in the sand and saying "this is OUR version of marriage, this is how we as a nation defines it, and everyone get's access to it", while probably meeting resistance from religious groups from a perceived "theft of the definition of marriage", would be most beneficial in the long term. Everyone get's the same word, for some it doesn't have to be religious but how it is defined by the state, for others it can take on whatever religious connotation their religion puts on it. But everyone has the same word (which can mean a lot when we subconsciously engage in labelling etc).

It's definitely a complex and sensitive issue, though.

 

[RJ 17]

Nope.

You do not, in fact, have to tolerate someone declaring that you should be a criminal, because they are not living and letting live. If someone punches me in the mouth, I don't have to say, "Well, that's a fair opinion."

If you said or did something that deserved to be punched in the mouth - say spit in the face of and directly challenge that person's personal beliefs and values - then yeah, you kinda deserve to be punched in the mouth. On the other hand...

As soon as he says that my friends are sick and broken and need to be fixed?

If he did actually say something along those lines, then he's taking the Pat Robertson approach and basing his views off of ignorance and hatred in which case his point loses all validity.

I don't know what he said or didn't say, my entire point hasn't even really had anything to do with Orson in particular. MY point was that often times people screaming that others are being intolerant are, themselves, being very intolerant. Boycotting someone is an entirely different discussion, you have the right to spend your money or not spend your money however you choose and for whatever reason you choose. I've been talking about being accepting of the fact that some people might be against gay marriage because of their personal values and beliefs while having absolutely nothing against homosexuals in general...they just believe marriage should be reserved between a man and a woman. That's a valid viewpoint. On the other hand, if someone's up there saying "Dem dere queermosexuals disgust me, they're unnatural, and I think they should be thrown in jail or killed!" that is not a valid viewpoint as it's based purely off of hatred of something different, not personally held values.

I don't know which side of that line that Orson falls on - as I said my point wasn't necessarily about him to begin with - all I was asking was for tolerance towards the people who have a different viewpoint than your own, just as homosexuals expect tolerance from them for having a different lifestyle/sexuality than them.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I do think that boycotting Ender's Game is wrong.

I don't know, maybe it's a cultural thing. For me, boycott is a very strong word. I live in Russia, and although I was born after USSR, I was still surrounded by it's culture as a child and teenager. Much of Soviet movies and literature are naive and propagandistic, promoting blind idealistic righteousness that often included boycotting some poor individual. And oh boy boycotts are SCARRY. It'a a form of shunning, an ostracizing of a person from society. In ancient world exile was considered to be punishment vastly more cruel than death, and only worst of criminals deserved it.

Comparing a boycott to exile is silly in this case, the circumstances are very different. Card has plenty of his bigot friends to support him in this "oh so terrible time."

He hasn't been blacklisted, he hasn't been censored, he hasn't been maimed. Yes, he's being shunned, he's being shunned in the most mild way possible.

Hell, Card is getting off easy. In 2007, Tim Hardaway said he didn't like gay and people and would try to get gay people fired.....and then he was promptly fired.

That's right, Hardaway got fired for saying one sentence. Card's been doing the same thing for over 13 years.

So when someone decides that he or she won't pay any money to Card, I can understand that, although personally I think that rejecting Ender's Game, a brilliant book that judges evil of xenophobia and promotes value of empathy, is a big mistake.

That's not very convincing when it's written by a person who judges people according to his own rulebook, has almost no empathy for people who don't follow his rules, and encourages homophobia.

I'll sleep better not owning that book.

But "boycotting" Card because of his religious beliefs, no matter how backwards they are, is something very different.

It's not merely his beliefs, it's his actions. It has been been stated multiple times in this thread that Card has been active in trying to hamper rights for gay people. If you think a boycott is too harsh for Card, I think you should examine the type of environment that he promotes for gay people.

As it was stated by other people in this topic, boycott is something different. It's not a personal choice, it's a societal, сommunal act of deliberately hurting someone.
We are honestly better than that.

It IS a personal choice. That's how boycott's are formed. I don't see how you think Card exercising his freedom of speech is fine, but anyone protesting (utilizing the SAME freedom of speech) is somehow in the wrong.

You are literally saying: "It's ok for Card to hurt people with his words, but you can't protest him with YOUR words because that's hurtful."

 

[Guiltyone]

As it was stated by other people in this topic, boycott is something different. It's not a personal choice, it's a societal, сommunal act of deliberately hurting someone.
We are honestly better than that.

It IS a personal choice. That's how boycott's are formed. I don't see how you think Card exercising his freedom of speech is fine, but anyone protesting (utilizing the SAME freedom of speech) is somehow in the wrong.

You are literally saying: "It's ok for Card to hurt people with his words, but you can't protest him with YOUR words because that's hurtful."

I'm saying that if we consider his actions to be wrong we ought to do better than he does/did. It's seems like a logical enough idea to me. We can't blame a person for intolerance while being intolerant, can we? It's counterproductive.

It's not a personal choice if you go to internet, call OSC names and demonize his every action (which many, but gladly not all participants of this thread do). And it's exactly the same argument that people use to correctly ascertain that OSC's homophobic beliefs were expressed publicly and thus can be viewed as a public, not personal, statement. If you express your opinion in a public forum, it's public.
Which is quite ironic since incredible power of such public expression is one of the main stories in Ender's Game

 

[barbzilla]

As for your final statement, I think that the church should be allowed to marry whomever they wish to marry inside their religious beliefs. I also think that the government should have a "legal" marriage or legal joining that should be allowed to any two people who want to be married, granting them all of the legal benefits therein. This means that I support marriage between any couple, I just think that the term is being confused as it is. It has a certain duality about it that needs to be changed. Separating the church and the state portions of marriage is how I think this could be accomplished.

See m issue with this is that it puts the church above the law, if I own a shop I can't say i refuse to serve gays or I refuse to serve blacks. Why? Because that's bigoted, discriminatory and I am infringing on the rights of people. However if the church decide to say that they wont marry gays then thats A-OK because it's "Traditional" how about we see if a church would get away saying they wont marry interracial couples? Because that is in escence what they are doing to gay people.

How would this put the church above the law? It would completely separate the two acts. What churches do would no longer be connected with what a legal marriage is (though I imagine that many people would seek both). Since churches are allowed to have their own belief structures, it is already allowed for them to bypass some discrimination laws. That is a completely different matter though.

For the sake of this argument lets say that my idea comes to pass. We call legal marriage marriage, and church marriage holy moly joining ritual (or HMJR for short). From that point on any two people who want to get married could legally get married in whatever courthouse they want, meanwhile people seeking HMJR could get married at any church that accepts them. It would be two completely separate entities, and not related to legal jurisdiction as it is religious doctrine and protected by law.

I hope this manages to make this a bit more clear.

I understand what your saying and in the UK we have that to an extent with civil services and all that shit but what I'm saying is that while it is illegal for most institutions to refuse services because of somebody's sexual alignment it is seemingly okay for the church to do it. As I said before if the church refused to marry somebody because they were black there would be uproar but if they refused to marry someone because they are gay that is acceptable somehow?

See my previous edits, but the short of it. In the US (or Florida at least) a business can refuse service to anyone they wish to. That doesn't mean they won't get a crap ton of bad PR for it, but they can get away with it legally. As for churches, some do refuse certain racial groups or interracial couples. I was recently refused by my fiance's parents' church because we are interracial. Needless to say, her parents no longer go to that church.

Oh wow I did not realize that that could still happen in the US, that does certainly put a different spin on the legal side of it I guess. And I am sorry to hear that about your fiance's parents' church. I guess that if that's the situation in the US then perhaps less sweeping changes are in order when it comes to issues such as these.

I guess I just find the refusal of a christian marriage towards homosexuals irritating because of the fact that while most churches would marry me no questions asked, I am almost a zealot in my opposition to organised religion, where as one of my good friends is gay and I have never met somebody more devoted to Christianity.

Typical church hypocrisy. It is one of the main reasons I am not religious like my parents. Even from a young age I've seen a great deal of questionable decisions made in the church, not to mention I dislike how they actively try to fight science (of which I believe a great deal in).

I do think there is something else out there, I just don't know who or what. That is a subject for another day though. Glad we are on the same page now though.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Fair enough, I'm not even going to try and argue against that since as I said I agree completely with you and I can now plainly see why people are wanting to boycott him. All I'm saying is that there's a big difference between intolerance because of ignorance and hate (as Orson was displaying) and "intolerance" because of a clash of values. I fully admit that I don't really have a good way to explain said difference, the best I can do is say that it's the same as the difference between outright hating homosexuals in general and disagreeing with gay marriage, but having no problem with homosexuals in general. The former is ignorance and hate, the latter is just having different values.

Edit: The real problem comes from when hateful people start claiming religious reasons for their hate, making everyone else who just holds the religious view of "Marriage is between a man and a woman" look like hateful people as well when in reality not all of them have a problem with homosexuals being homosexual, they just disagree with letting them marry.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I'm saying that if we consider his actions to be wrong we ought to do better than he does/did. It's seems like a logical enough idea to me. We can't blame a person for intolerance while being intolerant, can we? It's counterproductive.

How are you equating a disagreement with his views as "being intolerant." It's stupid.

I am saying "I don't want to support him." I am telling others not to support him and clarifying my reasons. How is that intolerant?

I hate to invoke Godwin's law here. But if a Nazi demanded I donate to his cause, and I said "No" would that make me intolerant?

It would be intolerant if I tried to stop him from showing the movie at all. All I'm doing is passive resistance

It's not a personal choice if you go to internet, call OSC names and demonize his every action (which many, but gladly not all participants of this thread do).

Those are all things a person has to decide to do, so yes they are personal choices. No idea what you're saying here.

And it's exactly the same argument that people use to correctly ascertain that OSC's homophobic beliefs were expressed publicly and thus can be viewed as a public, not personal, statement. If you express your opinion in a public forum, it's public.
Which is quite ironic since incredible power of such public expression is one of the main stories in Ender's Game

Yeah I still don't know what you're arguing. Also Card's homophobic beliefs have been expressed publicly for the last two decades. They're all over the internet and have been posted in this topic.

 

[Lilani]

Dude, maybe you should chill. I am an agnostic, I don't have any religion other than just the belief that there is something else out there besides us. What you are talking about is the continuation of an agreement that England and the catholics had. This carried over to the US, but marriage as we know it today started as a religious institution. Prior to it being about coupling two people in love it was a contractual agreement between men to transfer ownership of women, so I don't consider that marriage. So before you go and spew your bile at someone, perhaps you should collect all the facts first.

Marriage itself started somewhere around 2500bc in Mesopotamia. It didn't become involved in politics until the Roman Catholic Church made it mandatory to be "legally" married as a way to increase tithes. Eventually it became even more tied to government when the Church of England tied itself to the King. This is also about the time that the crusades started, so it wasn't a period of great judgement. However gay marriage has been allowed as far back as the Roman empire, and that was with the church's blessing at the time as well.

So next time, maybe you should engage the person in conversation before you make assumptions. After all we all know that when you make assumptions, you make an ass out of yourself (generally speaking, and not you in particular).

Marriage in the past was also once a way for a man to literally own a woman and for her to become classified as part of his property, but we were pretty quick to throw that one out of the books, eh?

Marriage has always been a religious institution. In the US of A religion and politics is supposed to be separated. By making laws about Marriage, the government is effectively restricting people's religious beliefs (which it is not supposed to, but has been doing for some time).

...But seriously, the role of marriage today is for the government to recognize people who are living as one legal, entity under one roof. Them being able to recognize these people makes inheritance, child custody, joint bank accounts and loans, hospital visitation, and power of attorney much easier to figure out. It may have had religious roots and a religious reason for being in the past, but as far as the government uses it, marriage is simply a legal classification that determines one's tax bracket. For that reason, to decide the standards of this legal classification by the standards of a religious group is violating religious freedom. The government is not allowed to use the values of a certain religion as its measuring stick for any legal classification. Which yes, is restricting people's religious rights, because that means if they make the mistake of not choosing to follow the values of the specific vein of the specific religion the government has decided is its favorite, then their relationship doesn't get to be recognized.