so... Orson Scott Card... boycott why?

[Thaluikhain]

I honestly think it's less a need to boycott (which is unlikely to actually affect him personally in any way) as it is to just continue the conversation. When you get someone who is both anti-gay and has otherwise insane beliefs (i.e. Obama is going to organize minority gangs into a personal army that he will use to make himself into a life-long Dictator of America), it works well for the pro-gay rights groups to make sure everyone knows about him to help paint their opposition as being as crazy as possible.

Well, there's that, but I think in large part it's the principle of the thing. You don't hang out with people you don't approve of, even if all the cool kids are doing it.

 

[Andrew_C]

Most people want to boycott because he's a board member of the hate group National Organisation for Marriage, and in the past has expressed his disappointment that homosexuality is not a crime and written that he believes that all homosexuals are paedophiles. Nothing he has said recently indicate that his beliefs have changed.

Some people have indicated that his producers credit is likely in lieu of additional payment and that that due to Hollywood accounting he would be unlikely to see any more money anyway. But I think that it is wrong to let such a hateful person benefit in any way, directly or indirectly, without protest.

 

[JoJo]

People who oppose the irrational oxymoron of gay "marriage", regardless of why, are people who deserve respect - especially in this time where many _actual_ bigots of all colours are intolerant of people with moral values.
Ironically his position on the subject is much more egalitarian than his opponents' - many people's inability to grasp this makes it all the more entertaining.

I don't know too much about this person but none of his quotes from Wikipedia are troubling. If he's being blasted only for opposing gay marriage, kudos to him.

Okay, quick question. How is treating one set of couples (heterosexual) differently from another set of couples (homosexual) more egalitarian than treating them as the same under law?

Because one set can benefit the society in a fundamental way, and the other cannot.

And if you were _truly_ egalitarian, you should not restrict the discussion to just couples - if marriage is about love and love only as some supporters of SSM claim, there is no point in dropping the distinction in gender without dropping also the one in number.

Adoption by same-sex couples exists though, as well as bringing along a child from a previous opposite-sex relationship or the use of a surrogate, so if you are claiming that opposite-sex marriage has fundamental benefits for society because it helps raise the next generation, the same can equally be said about same-sex marriage. I don't know about you but in my opinion there's a great lack of stable families in our society today and so we should be doing all we can to encourage the parents of children to stay together in the stable institution of marriage, regardless of whether the parents are opposite or same-sex.

As for poly marriage, I (and many others) do support that as well under certain circumstances, though that isn't what we are discussing in this thread.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

Are you seriously going with the "it's not the person, it's the lifestyle" thing there? Erm, yeah.

[snip]

Card is saying that only his definition of marriage is valid ,and apparently so valid that if it's not given exclusive rights under the law, the government should be overthrown. Since he says "regardless of law" I'm assuming he's talking about the religious definition of marriage. But there's multiple religions with multiple definitions of marriage (like Muslims, or even other Mormons and polygamy) so he seems to be saying here that the government ought to respect his religious views alone (and that only his viewpoint deserves to be respected). Which, besides breaking the first amendment, sounds pretty disrespectful to every other viewpoint (regardless of whether or not those viewpoints deserve respect).

Hi Animyr,
No, I haven't spoke about person vs. lifestyle distinction.

Card correctly distinguishes between unions that can have children and others that cannot. This distinction is rational, given that marriage confers additional rights to those who contract it, some of which have a cost for the taxpayers. The (potential) contribution of new individuals that marriage can provide is the reason of those rights, rights that individual citizens that pay their taxes and are otherwise valued members of society don't enjoy.

Of course yes, this is discrimination - in the actual meaning of the word, not in the negative connotation that some people attempt to give it.
One could argue that discriminating between different situations is one of the goals of law as a whole.

But even Card says that "We do not believe that homosexuals, by entering into a marriage, are personally hurting anybody" so what's the problem, then?(Of course he's also claimed that all homosexuals are pedophiles, so it's hard to say for sure what he thinks or why).

The problem is one of both definition and fairness. If you completely remove the role of procreation from marriage, I see no practical reason for which married people are entitled to those additional rights.
If two men can marry, despite having no biological ability to reproduce (which some argue is the government?s stake in heterosexual marriage) and without having both genders represented as role models in the household (which others argue is the government?s stake in heterosexual marriage), then certainly two men and a woman can marry.
No one can credibly argue that three people cannot be in love.

Raising children is hard. Committing to stay together as a couple for the children's benefit is hard - many people, myself included, agreed that monogamy is fundamentally against our male genetic predisposition of spreading our DNA as much as possible.
As a geek and gamer I find it difficult to limit my hobby in order to dedicate to my family the time they deserve, but I do it anyway because I know it's the right thing - toward my parents who have done the same for me, toward my ancestors that gave their blood and life for our freedom, toward society as a whole.
I refuse to accept that this is completely equivalent to two people that stay together simply because they love each other.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Card correctly distinguishes between unions that can have children and others that cannot. This distinction is rational, given that marriage confers additional rights to those who contract it, some of which have a cost for the taxpayers. The (potential) contribution of new individuals that marriage can provide is the reason of those rights, rights that individual citizens that pay their taxes and are otherwise valued members of society don't enjoy.

Homosexual unions can have children, invitro-fertilization, artificial insemination and all that jazz.

 

[EternallyBored]

Meh, you should know by now OP freedom of speech is only allowed on the Escapist if you say the right things. To be fair, the bloke clearly has some backward views but a bunch of objectionable people have made a bunch of good art over the years. I don't remember much Polanski boycotting going on and he did some truly horrible stuff rather than just said some stuff. I expect quite a few Escapists will boycott the film but outside of the echo chamber of aggressive activist far left wing sentiment that is the Escapist, in the real world, I doubt the viewing figures will be impacted much; most people probably won't be aware.

What exactly do you think freedom of speech actually means? You seem to believe it means people have to buy your products or whatever you create.

Just meant to be a wry observation on the inconsistent and selective nature of modern "boycott", woe betide the person who makes a "problematic" (so sinister that word!) comment about homosexuals, women or a trendy race. However, specific incidents of actual criminality, bereft of the required "-ism" to attract activists, are ignored.

Then its a very poor observation based on selective blindness to the things you don't want to see. Boycotts are one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of activism, Card isn't even being seriously boycotted, a few groups put out a memo saying "hey there's an Ender's game movie coming out and Card financially supports anti-gay marriage organizations, LGBT groups might want to be aware of that", and then the media jumps on it and people pretend like every gay person in the country is signing petitions and going to protests or something.

In fact, the largest most organized boycott in the world currently has nothing to do with any "isms", it's against Monsanto's monopoly business practices and its stranglehold on the agricultural patents industry. "But surely the other boycotts must be all about these "isms" I so smugly deride". Not really, below that, the most money and activism goes to exploitative labor, boycotts on African goods coming from slave labor, agricultural food and animal treatment reforms, child welfare reform, and fighting poverty and medical costs in the United States.

Please stop pretending a few people on tumblr clamoring for a boycott of anything that offends them is anything more than just a few people trying to make internet waves. Boycotts are a real thing, that serve multiple purposes, and actually get rarely used in any serious manner against people like Card, they are primarily used against businesses with exploitative or discriminatory practices, the Chick fil a boycott was the last organized one that had anything to do with "isms". Your "wry" observations need work, generally they have to be based in some form of reality, not just what you wish reality was.

EDIT: Final note too, please stop misusing freedom of speech, it's cheap appeal to morality, and has nothing to do with this thread. Misrepresenting the Constitution just harms any legitimate point you might have made.

 

[EternallyBored]

Meh, you should know by now OP freedom of speech is only allowed on the Escapist if you say the right things. To be fair, the bloke clearly has some backward views but a bunch of objectionable people have made a bunch of good art over the years. I don't remember much Polanski boycotting going on and he did some truly horrible stuff rather than just said some stuff. I expect quite a few Escapists will boycott the film but outside of the echo chamber of aggressive activist far left wing sentiment that is the Escapist, in the real world, I doubt the viewing figures will be impacted much; most people probably won't be aware.

What exactly do you think freedom of speech actually means? You seem to believe it means people have to buy your products or whatever you create.

Just meant to be a wry observation on the inconsistent and selective nature of modern "boycott", woe betide the person who makes a "problematic" (so sinister that word!) comment about homosexuals, women or a trendy race. However, specific incidents of actual criminality, bereft of the required "-ism" to attract activists, are ignored.

Then its a very poor observation based on selective blindness to the things you don't want to see. Boycotts are one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of activism, Card isn't even being seriously boycotted, a few groups put out a memo saying "hey there's an Ender's game movie coming out and Card financially supports anti-gay marriage organizations, LGBT groups might want to be aware of that", and then the media jumps on it and people pretend like every gay person in the country is signing petitions and going to protests or something.

In fact, the largest most organized boycott in the world currently has nothing to do with any "isms", it's against Monsanto's monopoly business practices and its stranglehold on the agricultural patents industry. "But surely the other boycotts must be all about these "isms" I so smugly deride". Not really, below that, the most money and activism goes to exploitative labor, boycotts on African goods coming from slave labor, agricultural food and animal treatment reforms, child welfare reform, and fighting poverty and medical costs in the United States.

Please stop pretending a few people on tumblr clamoring for a boycott of anything that offends them is anything more than just a few people trying to make internet waves. Boycotts are a real thing, that serve multiple purposes, and actually get rarely used in any serious manner against people like Card, they are primarily used against businesses with exploitative or discriminatory practices, the Chick fil a boycott was the last organized one that had anything to do with "isms". Your "wry" observations need work, generally they have to be based in some form of reality, not just what you wish reality was.

EDIT: Final note too, please stop misusing freedom of speech, it's cheap appeal to morality, and has nothing to do with this thread. Misrepresenting the Constitution just harms any legitimate point you might have made.

Ha ha, well that's me told! Not sure if the US Constitution applies in the UK but I will take it as a wider point of on invoking "freedom of speech".

Yes, well, now I feel bad for coming off kind of rude back there. I get where you're probably coming from with your original post, this is the internet and people like to whine on it, and Tumblr and facebook has quite a few social justice warrior types that like to jump on anything remotely offensive. Yeah, those people are stupid, but outside the internet no one takes them seriously, certainly not any national or international activist organizations. The media blew the whole card boycott way out of proportion, despite the hyperbole traded on the internet, the hate for Card has never really gone beyond, "yeah the guy's a douchnozzle, so I'm not going to buy his stuff", news networks tried to make it look like every gay rights group in the U.S. was obsessing over the movie; they weren't.

As for freedom of speech, yeah whenever that gets brought up I kind of assume they are talking about the U.S. constitution, I'll admit I have no idea what the UK's speech laws look like. In the U.S., freedom of speech only applies to the federal government, so it only becomes a valid talking point if the government is trying to repress speech or people are trying to lobby the government to repress speech. If the government ever actually does try to censor Card in some fashion, then yes I'll be right there with you yelling about violations against the freedom of speech. Private places like this have no speech rights, if the site owners decide tomorrow that they will censor anyone that doesn't praise Jim Sterling as their new lord and savior, they are perfectly within their rights to do so. Within the U.S. at least.

 

[Animyr]

Snip

You misattributed the quote.

Card correctly distinguishes between unions that can have children and others that cannot. ?marriage confers additional rights to those who contract it, some of which have a cost for the taxpayers. The (potential) contribution of new individuals that marriage can provide is the reason of those rights, rights that individual citizens that pay their taxes and are otherwise valued members of society don't enjoy?.I refuse to accept that this is completely equivalent to two people that stay together simply because they love each other.

Last time I checked, two people who love each other and wanted to spend their lives together are all that?s required to make a marriage. Maybe your cultural or religious background attaches the additional requirement of having children, and do that if you want, but marriage is a custom that varies between cultures and time periods and not all people give it the same connotations. Why should your definition of marriage be given favored treatment? Not because of your cultural or religious tradition, because not all of us (in fact, chances are most us) subscribe to that and we?re under no inherent obligation to.

This leaves us with practical reasons, and you seem to think that in an era of advanced medical technology and dwindling resources, it?s absolutely paramount that as many people as possible have children because?? You?re vague as to why, or why letting people (homosexual or otherwise) opt out of having children or being able to be legally married affects that so much. As if homosexuals can?t have children, and as if homosexual sex was anywhere close to the primary cause of falling birthrates. (Hint; it has to do with gender equality). Care to unpack that? I?m really not sure what you?re getting at.

And while I?ll grant you that people raising children deserve special considerations, why does the rights you think need to be conferred to those ?raising children? need to be exclusive to the legally married and heterosexual? Because the ability to have/raise children certainly isn?t, and nothing about these alternate family structures is inherently harmful either.

And if marriage is about procreation then the infertile, the old, heterosexual people who simply don't intend to have children due to personal or medical reasons, or maybe already have children but don't intend to have children with each other, (or, as Spot pointed out, those castrated or tube tied) can't get married either. What?s more important here; sexuality or child bearing?

 

[allonbacuth]

Anyone who would boycott a movie over such things probably wouldn't enjoy Ender's Game anyway. OSC might be a nutjob, but he is a pretty great author.

 

[Brad Shepard]

To quote a show that use to be good Oh my god who cares? Get over it people, guess what. PEOPLE HAVE OPINIONS and ranting and raving about boycotts never does a damn thing.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

Because one set can benefit the society in a fundamental way, and the other cannot.

Homosexual couples are capable of tending to children you know; they don't just become child eating monsters when they get married.

Hi LifeCharacter,

no one intends to project a new mccarthyism on homosexuals. Adoption, on top of being a different subject, is entirely different from procreation.

Don't start down this road. It's a stupid road filled with bullshit arguments and comparisons that fall apart the minute you actually look at them. Polygamous marriages, for instance, are restricted due to the belief that they're abusive and misogynistic, as shown in basically every depiction of them in media. And, other than the legal complications involved with having more than two partners (and more than one lineage) I don't see a reason to prevent such a thing so long as measures are taken to prevent possible abuse.

Why is this comparison inappropriate? If you read my reply to Animyr, you will see that it is a more than reasonable comparison.
You can argue that homosexual couples have more in common to heterosexual ones than they are to polygamous unions, but it makes no sense to dismiss them entirely as abusive and misogynistic.
If I was to use the same rhetoric of left-wing extremists I would have already been calling you "poligamophobe" or "poliandrophobe" for this last sentence.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

As for poly marriage, I (and many others) do support that as well under certain circumstances, though that isn't what we are discussing in this thread.

If you do, then you agree with my that restricting marriage to couples alone is unjust, it's inconsistent, and it's unfair toward other forms of union where people sincerely love each other.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

Homosexual unions can have children, invitro-fertilization, artificial insemination and all that jazz.

So can single individuals, and the fact remains that only one person of the couple is the actual parent. It is definitely not the same thing and it is not an argument in support of marriage.

 

[JoJo]

As for poly marriage, I (and many others) do support that as well under certain circumstances, though that isn't what we are discussing in this thread.

If you do, then you agree with my that restricting marriage to couples alone is unjust, it's inconsistent, and it's unfair toward other forms of union where people sincerely love each other.

Indeed, I see no reason why marriage contracts shouldn't be available to any number of consenting adults provided they are all in a mutual relationship with each other. Unfortunately, since even socially liberal people are divided on the issue of poly marriage the idea has a long way to go before it has a hope of becoming law. Still, with any luck same-sex marriage will help soften people up to the idea over time ;-)

 

[blackrave]

Funny how people discuss about boycotting product because there is some bad stuff behind the product
Yet most of these people consume fossil oil products like candy
Hi-fucking-larious
Only way to make sure you don't hurt no one is to commit suicide (and even then the fact of suicide will hurt people close to you)
Sad fact is that if you are living it is inevitably that you will hurt someone, directly or indirectly.
All one can do is try to limit direct damage, indirect damage is something no one can be truly sure about.
You can never know if the company you support by your money is indirectly indirectly.. blablabla.. indirectly indirectly hurting someone/something.
So stop over thinking things, people!