Is Supporting the Ender's Game Comic the same as supporting homophobia?
As many of you know, Marvel Comics have liscensed the series of Ender's Game novels written by Orson Scott Card. What many of you may not know, Orson Scott Card is a well-documented opponent to not only homosexual marriage but gay rights in general. As adaptations of Orson Scott Card's work, the Ender's Game comic series leaves the reader in a bind, especially when the adaptation is being handled by writers of Marvel's mainstream titles like X-Force and X-Men: Legacy.
In this article, I will provide you with information on Orson Scott Card that you may or may not know and will leave you to decide for yourself if purchasing a comic like the Ender's Game adaptations is a good idea or not.
Back in 1985, Orson Scott Card created a national best-selling sci-fi novel called Ender's Game. Many sci-fi fans would get caught up in the story of a young boy who is trained at a young age to become a killer for his government. Many themes can be found throughout the series, but it's really the personal beliefs of the author that is at the heart of this article.
See, Orson Scott Card is a Mormon who has strong anti-homosexual beliefs. These beliefs are widely documented and easily found by doing a simple google search. However, I would like to document an article that Card wrote on February 15, 2004 that illustrates his beliefs and attacks the homosexual community. In an article entitled "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization", which can be found HERE, Card states:
In the first place, no law in any state in the United States now or ever has forbidden homosexuals to marry. The law has never asked that a man prove his heterosexuality in order to marry a woman, or a woman hers in order to marry a man.Any homosexual man who can persuade a woman to take him as her husband can avail himself of all the rights of husbandhood under the law. And, in fact, many homosexual men have done precisely that, without any legal prejudice at all.
Ditto with lesbian women. Many have married men and borne children. And while a fair number of such marriages in recent years have ended in divorce, there are many that have not.
So it is a flat lie to say that homosexuals are deprived of any civil right pertaining to marriage. To get those civil rights, all homosexuals have to do is find someone of the opposite sex willing to join them in marriage.
Chief among my own objections to this "rationalization" of Card's is that he has chosen to remove a romantic relationship from the definition of marriage. In what is clearly a simplification of marriage, Card is declaring that even if it's a loveless marriage, it's completely fine to deny a gay couple the right to marry because "Hey, if the men want to get married, all they have to do if find some woman to marry them. Vice versa for the lesbian couple."
Okay, so how does this solve things when a man who is married to a woman but is in love with another man wants to leave his lover his estate when he dies? How does the loveless marriage between a man and his beard protect his lover or allow his lover the rights to care for him and make decisions for him when he's sick? I find it almost laughable that Card would try to negate gay marriage in such a simplified way as to suggest that if a man wants to get married, he should just go out and find a willing woman to marry him.
Furthermore, Card also states:
We've already seen similar attempts at redefinition. The ideologues have demanded that we stop defining "families" as Dad, Mom, and the kids. Now any grouping of people might be called a "family."But this doesn't turn them into families, or even make rational people believe they're families. It just makes it politically unacceptable to use the word family in any meaningful way.
The same thing will happen to the word marriage if the Massachusetts decision is allowed to stand, and is then enforced nationwide because of the "full faith and credit" clause in the Constitution.
Just because you give legal sanction to a homosexual couple and call their contract a "marriage" does not make it a marriage. It simply removes marriage as a legitimate word for the real thing.
If you declare that there is no longer any legal difference between low tide and high tide, it might stop people from publishing tide charts, but it won't change the fact that sometimes the water is lower and sometimes it's higher.
Calling a homosexual contract "marriage" does not make it reproductively relevant and will not make it contribute in any meaningful way to the propagation of civilization.
Now, I realize that the opinions of Card may not be the same opinions of Mike Carey and Christopher Yost, the writers behind the Marvel adaptations of Card's work, but I can not in good conscience support work that's based off of a writer who's made it his mission to declare war on me because he doesn't approve of my right to marry who I choose based on love instead of reproductive obligation.
RogueFan
Posted to Comics, editorial on 2 December 2008
· Comments (27)
Other stuff like this: ender's game, Orson Scott Card
I found out about all of this years ago when I was in the middle of Ender's Game. Part of me wanted to put the book down in anger, but I had become so attached to the characters that I pressed on to the end. Despite Card's views, the book is still one of my favorites. I just find it sad that his message of compassion and understanding can handle aliens bent on the destruction of humanity, but not our community.
Hey Tommy,
Thanks for the response. I'm glad to hear what you have to say. I don't know if I could have made the same decision that I'm making now if I had gotten into the series before finding out the author's religious views. As you know, I have very sticky issues when it comes to religion.
And while so many try to insinuate that there is a "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution (actually came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson)...a person's free speech right, which is in the Constitution is being squashed by made up rights, like a so called "right" to marry. Although Mormons are wrong on so many levels theologically, they are on the right side here.
People do, indeed, have a right to their views and the right to freedom of speech, but they don't have freedom from the consequences of their views and statements. I won't tell anyone what to say, but if I don't like what they say, I see no reason to support them financially. Say what you want, Orson (including that I should be arrested for being gay), but don't expect me to put money in your bank account.
A real pity, because I actually like his writing.
Dozens of friends of mine had reccomended Enders Game over the past sevral years, and I being a curious dork of a researcher decided to look Orson Scott Card up before I bought the book. I'm glad I did. The above essays you posted were not only blatantly dismissive of the human component of our (or any relationship). Its far more complicated than marrying for the sake of economic stability. The concept he suggests is so trite and smarmy...I just hope his books don't have the same pat voice. Reprodictive relevance is not relevant to all marriages. Not every heterosexual couple can have children, should we render their ability to marry null because of such? Scores of people marry without the luxury or inclination to bare children, the point Card makes here is a snub of their choice to marry and honor each other. On its face this argument doesn't stand as anything but a slippery slope.
I want to thank you for bringing this up. I had resolved to not pick up the book because of Card, though I'm a big Mike Carey fan. I don't think Carey shares his views based on any interviews I've read, but this colaboration does make me wonder.
G
I agree with his right to free speech, just as I agree that I have the right to not support anything he writes because I don't agree.
Actually, I don't have a problem with his right to share his opinions, what I have a problem is with how aggresively he attacks my life because it doesn't fit into his world view.
Thanks for the feedback, y'all. I didn't know if I was doing a good thing or not by writing this article even though I've been wanting to discuss it for a few weeks now.
I will not be picking up this comic book. Simply because the author and his views disgust me. Could this have been the best book I have ever read? Yes. Will I ever know? Not a chance.
It may seem small minded to not read this book. In many ways it is. But, for the same reason one doesnt support a homophobic organization, I will not pay a single dime to this homophobic man.
sojourner, check out the 9th amendment in the Bill of Rights. Early framers were opposed to a Bill of Rights because they feared that by explicitly listing some rights of states and citizens, all others not listed would be assumed not to exist. The 9th amendment was the compromise. It states that any right not mentioned in the constitution is reserved to the states (and citizens), and should not be inferred not to exist solely from lack of mention.
The US supreme court interpreted the US constitution in 1967 to include a fundamental right to marry. Other rights that have come from the 9th amendment include the right to privacy. Check it out. It's an awesome document, the constitution.
Card has said far more hateful things. He doesn't just oppose marriage, he supports throwing gay people in jail.
http://www.postmodernvillage.com/eastwest/issue17/17a-0005.html
I guess calls for just jailing just enough gays to scare us, as opposed to wholesale imprisonment of all gays, is what passes for "moderate" in lunatic Mormon circles, but to me, supporting Card is tantamount to supporting a Nazi.
Would Marvel support a writer who supports jailing African-Americans, or Mormons, or Jews???? No way. Marvel's association with that contemptible bigot is a disgrace.
@ Brian
very good point at the end of that about Marvel supporting this. Sad because I like alot of their stuff.
As a published gay author, look up The Chronicles of Africa: Malaika's Journey(actually has homosexual love story in it), I actually have a few things to say to everyone in regards to Mormons and their views.
My first boyfriend is a Mormon, his Mormon family loved me, and the people of Salt Lake City have come to actually TOLERATE homosexuals. I lived there from 03 to 06 as a member of Equality Utah we fought to prevent laws from denying us rights and have almost won every time but Mormons don't believe that gays should be locked up. Some surprising news to everyone is that Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, actually has the highest gay population per ca pita.
Orson Scott Card has his own views on Homosexuals but that doesn't mean that all Mormons do. I was always told that the church is true, it accepts, but the people are not. I was invited into this loving community but not with its drawbacks from the extremists.
When it was pride day the only people out protesting where the same religious zealots that also protested the Mormons. A lot of the Mormon people joined in the festivities.
Please don't make rash comments on a group of people based on one persons belief. The former President of the Mormon church wanted to preach more then tolerance to his fellowship but that died with him. When the Mormons come to my house to talk with me they don't preach against it and they accept the fact that I'm gay and don't try to change it.
Sorry I'm ranting. I still enjoy Ender's Game and the series I don't care that Orson Scott Card is homophobic he's not hurting me, at least not yet. Besides, I'm not the one that paid for the book.
Hm. I'm not going to be sold on this one, though I respect your personalization of this dialouge Mr. Rhodes. I do care that Orson Scott Card is homophobic. A public figure using his prestige to argue in published works how his is marriage is defensable because they can produce children, and how people like us should continue to be criminalized I think does have considerable impact. Its his right to feel as he does, but his feelings about me as a somehow less worthy individual make me consideriably less interested in what he has to say. The mormon issue I can put aside, because religious indoctrinization isn't an absolute. As you suggest in your post there's thankfully exception to rules. Thanks for sharing your insight here.
Also, I thought it worth reporting that Mike Carey's responded to the Newsarama article that generated a similar discussion:
"Yeah, I'd agree. The right of gay men and women to marry *is* a big deal, and *is* a human rights issue. I support that right a hundred per cent, and it angers me a lot when governments use weasel words to appease a vocal minority on the religious right: as in the UK recently, when the Labour government backed down on a commitment to legalise same-sex marriage, and instead decided to call a same-sex union a "civil partnership".
But I don't feel there's any necessary conflict between holding those views and working on a creative project with people who hold - and assert - opposite views. A book is a book, and a person is a person. If the views were in the work, it would be different: I would never agree to write a homophobic comic book, or adapt a homophobic novel. But I love the Ender books, GAME and SHADOW particularly, and I find nothing in them that's offensive. On the contrary, I think both books have a lot of powerful and insightful things to say about the forces in the world that dehumanise us in the name of causes, good and bad, and the terrible toll that wars take on the people who fight them.
All of this is not me disagreeing or taking issue with Tripped's boycott: that's absolutely his choice. I'm just explaining why I'm not pursuing a similar boycott.
- Mike Carey"
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/120802-Carey-Enders.html
Best,
Gavin
Matthew,
Thanks for your response. My article is an intention to inform other GLBT and GLBT-Friendly comic fans about the views of Orson Scott Card. I am not saying that all Mormons are like Card. I have two good friends who are Mormons and gay.
The more I think about this issue, though, the more it saddens me that someone with such a huge fan following has the venue to continue spewing his hateful views on impressionable people. That is what I'm against. That is why I won't purchase any of the Ender's Game comics.
Never read his books and will never read the comics either.
I won't hold it against Marvel or the other writers for adapting it though.
Though I already thoroughly dislike Mike Carey for his complete and utter lack of being able to write Iceman and despite that insisting to keep doing stories about him. Really, I'd rather have no new Bobby story than the umpthienth 'he loses his powers and gets seduced by a wellknown homocidal psychopath' story.
For me, it's pretty simple. Marvel had to pay a licensing fee to Card for the use of his work and/or he's getting a cut of the profits.
I'm not keen on feeding my enemies and making their lives easier. He could be the best writer in the world but I couldn't support him simply because doing so gives him the resources, in terms of money and fame, to continue harming me.
The relative 'worth' of the works in question isn't even a factor in the decision.
In some respects though about marriage I don't believe we should be fighting for what they call marriage. Marriage to me is the joining of two souls for love. All it means anymore is a peace of god damned paper for tax reasons. I want marriage in a different sense. Though it was wrong to say that Homosexuals should be locked up just for being who they are. We wee born this way we didn't chose to be like this. This is why we also have free speech, which is debatable anymore.
Everyone has their own opinion on wither or not to buy a book based solely on the fact of their views and opinions. There are just so many things that can be said or done and eventually it will all lead down the path to destruction.
The whole thing is just Yin and Yang you can't have one group of people or ideas without another. He can spread all the hate in the world but you would have to be a stupid redneck or a foll to follow.
Matthew,
There are plenty more rights that are part and parcel with civil marriages. Taxation is one, yes, but property rights, insurance, government protections, all are wrapped up in marriage. As it stands, if you work for a company that covers "domestic partners" under their insurance, there are hurdles upon hurdles one must jump through to qualify your husband for the insurance, whereas legally and civily married couples do not have to do that. Their legal, civil marriage document provides all the clearance they need. That (and many other reasons) is why I feel it's a bit disingenuous to say that taxes are the only benefits of legal, civil marriage.
It is disappointing that Marvel would choose to support Card. The bottom line is they are funneling money to the man who then uses said money and influence to directly affect my life. I'm not OK with that.
Thanks Marvel, while it lasted, but I can't bring myself to support any company that chooses to bed with anti-gay people.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Most Mormons think this way and it's ingrained in them at an early age: Marriage is not about love at all. To them it's only about establishing a contract with a perfect stranger and never really getting along with that person. More importantly they see it as something where one person simply exploits another, usually a woman being exploited by a man. Sure they sometimes develop love in time but that's long after they've already gotten married.
I agree with Matthew here in that I think we should all boycott marvel for choosing to side with a man who has used his income to further support his values of false love.
Ironically I once talked to a Mormon who wondered why gays weren't being punished and persecuted more for being in sham marriages with people of the opposite sex. "All those poor straight men and women who have been conned by their wives/husbands being gay are never considered victims by the relationships." It was like she had some kind of filter on that avoided her even recognizing gay people as equals or also victims. She always considered that it had to be the gay man/woman's fault for marrying someone of the opposite sex and then later coming out and divorcing them.
I guess I have to give up my soapbox. It is true that insurance and such is a benefit but there is a way to deny the business the ability to give same sex partners all that. When I lived in Utah we fought like hell to stop the 3rd amendment which didn't recognize any kind of marriage that was not TRADITIONAL. They would not accept civil unions or common law marriages.
I once wrote a story of what it would be like during that time when it was in effect. It is about a guy who goes to the hospital to see his dieing lover but the doctors wouldn't allow him to see his love and the dieing guys family denied him being able to see him either. As he attempts to go see him he is arrested. In the room the lover looks at the doctor and cries. "Could you please tell my lover that I love him." and dies without getting to see his boyfriend one last time.
I'm sorry, his country is just too fucked up to live in. 90 percent of the world outside of the United States has come to accept gays and gay marriage. I'm going to go cry now.
is this sad? is it a pity? if so, whom are we sad for and whom are were pitying? card? i don't think he deserves any soft emotions from us. ourselves? it's certainly disappointing, but it was also disappointing that i didn't get a ps3 for christmas last year. it seems that as gay comics nerds we should be a bit more vocal about this. it is, after all, our niche. letter writing campaign to marvel anyone? i's say "boycott" but i want to find out how "x-infernus" goes.
also,
She always considered that it had to be the gay man/woman's fault for marrying someone of the opposite sex and then later coming out and divorcing them.
well, it is that person's fault. if a closeted gay person marries someone of the opposite sex, s/he is not in a relationship, s/he has created a hostage situation. if that person decides to come out at a later date and ruin a couple of lives, then, yeah, they need to suck it up. being honest about one's sexuality is no doubt a stumbling block for many, but it's not an excuse to hurt others through false promises. in this way, homosexuality is a choice - one can choose to be honest about oneself, or one can choose to be dishonest. and i really have no pity for liars who get caught.
I won't and can't support anything remotely related to this man. His beliefs are vile, and his willingness to express them openly without even a glimmer of remorse or second thought is contemptible.
His "definition" of marriage flies in the face of honesty and common decency. People should enter into sham marriages? Just for procreation?
Good fucking christ, in his view there is nothing more to life than blindly following tradition and having kids for no other reason than to reproduce biologically - perpetuation of the species with absolutely no higher purpose in mind...
And once again, I am stunned that religious people dare to accuse atheists like me of having no sense of purpose or no respect for life. To them, marriage is an obligation and children are nothing more than little copies of themselves through which to live vicariously; mere vehicles for their own DNA. How utterly selfish. What a disgusting waste of human potential.
This isn't marriage, it's slavery.
@StSean:
I can sympathize with how you feel. However, you have to understand the power that religious indoctrination has to enslave minds. There are people living in cultures, even areas of the U.S., where they are afforded absolutely no opportunity to live openly as gay people. They are taught nothing but anti-gay lies from the moment they are born.
It's easy to sit in judgment, and I too share your sympathy for the unwitting spouses and children who are damaged whenever a closeted gay person pretends to be straight and has a family - but don't underestimate how horrible and pervasive homophobia is, especially when combined with theology - and don't place ALL the blame on the closeted partner. Chances are, his (or her) family and religious community are almost entirely responsible for filling his head with self-loathing and limiting his potential in life in the first place. Chances are also good that the spouse is aware on some level, and in as much denial as the closeted party.
@ eshto - i don't doubt.. strike that, i KNOW that religion plays a huge part in the development of a child's self-image, and how crushing it can be if religion tells the child that s/he is bad for offenses x, y and z. and this is a horrible thing. for a child. however, with the internet and TV and (lord knows) gay faces being shown everywhere, i find it a weakness of character that an adult can't find alternative, gay-positive messages out there. you yourself identified the "rough trade" type of homophobe (yeah, i looked at your art; pretty snazzy :)) as someone who spreads disease in the straight community with the ridiculous fence-jumping. and this is who i think of when i think of these johnny-come-out-of-the-closet-lately married types. i don't think of kids or teens or young adults who don't have that full sense of self yet - for them, i have hope they can figure out who they are and live honestly.
but, pay me no mind. i'm just not in a charitable mood today. tomorrow may be different :)
@stsean:
Yeah come to think of it, the adults who do this are terrible people. Fuck 'em.
Plus I can't argue with my own artwork!
sojourner said:
"And while so many try to insinuate that there is a "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution (actually came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson)...a person's free speech right, which is in the Constitution is being squashed by made up rights, like a so called "right" to marry. Although Mormons are wrong on so many levels theologically, they are on the right side here."
Are you retarded?
1. It's called the Establishment clause of the First Amendment. Oh, and the Free Exercise clause. The separation of church and state is a Constitutional guarantee. Even if the right to marry is not a right, theologically motivated restrictions on freedoms are illegitimate.
2. The notion that there are predefined "rights" out there in the world is philosophically untenable. Sure, there is no "right" to marry in the sense that it's not in the Constitution. But it's actually explicit in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Whether or not it belongs to the set of magical "rights" is irrelevant to the fact that people are entitled to marry whomever they please (so long as the contract is non-coercive). Otherwise, the government is engaging in undue discrimination.
3. Even if there is no "right" to marry, it does not follow that the Mormons are correct. Just because there is no absolute restriction on something doesn't mean the government should arbitrarily disrespect the views of its citizens, especially by singling out a group based on sexual orientation.
4. The right to marry is a subset of another legitimate right--the pursuit of happiness.
5. To say that the Mormons are on the "right side" of this debate is to say that there is something a priori wrong with homosexuality. If you're going to defend that view, you're just a bigoted asshole.
So I think you're wrong, and I think OSC's an asshole. However, the fact that you're wrong on this issue doesn't mean you're never right on anything else; that would be irrational. Similarly, the fact that OSC supports homophobia doesn't mean Ender's Game readers have to agree that homophobia is bad. If we don't separate the author's moral opinions from the book (especially a book of fiction), that justifies abandoning classics because their authors were slave-owning racists, sexists, and aristocratic pigs.
Is it just me, or does the human in the illustration look a bit...uh...goofy? I mean, the actual artistic talent exhibited is pretty good, but didn't Moe Howard have the same sugar-bowl haircut?
Oh, and in the spirit of "free speech"...Orson Scott Card IS an asshole! There, that's MY opinion, and I'M welcome to it!
@Jake:
Yes, sojourner is exceedingly retarded.
And I love how Mormons are wrong "theologically". LOL!! As if theology is some kind of objective science.
Sounds like sojourner is probably a member of a different religion, in which case all other religions besides his own will seem wrong to him. That's the way religion works.
And um... how is other people marrying "quashing" the "free speech" rights of the Mormons? Even if (or rather when) gay marriage becomes legal everywhere, the Mormons will STILL be free to EXPRESS themselves. Most weddings even give the guests an opportunity to contest the marriage, or "forever hold their peace".
I would also point out that while marriage in particular isn't guaranteed in the Constitution, equality is. Sojourner is going to have to come up with a rock solid argument for why straight couples get extra protections, tax deductions and other rewards and prizes just for being married and having genitals that don't match... as well as why I have to pay the same taxes as them when I don't get all those (tax subsidized) prizes!!
READ ENDER'S GAME.
If you don't want to financially support a dickhead like Card, then borrow the book from the library. My point is that it is a superb book first and foremost and also a touchstone of modern scifi.
I mean, the opposite case comes to mind: Remember there were Oscar voters who refused to see Brokeback Mountain just because it was about buttsex and never gave the movie a chance as a work of art.
THat was wrong, and boycotting Ender's Game would be wrong for the same reason, especially since the book itself has no anti gay message.
On a side note, I have to say that I will not be buying the comics adaptation of Ender's Game for the same reason I would never buy the novelization of Attack of the Clones. Some stuff doesn't work outside it's original format or it can mess up the original experience. I mean, The Green Mile was an excellent movie and yet, I regret ever seeing it because I've been unable to enjoy the book the same way since.