Worlds & Time

Friday, April 24, 2009

OSC Joins NOM

I don't usually offer responses on news stories. I figure that you've probably gotten your fill from the bajillion other sources out there. I do, so presumably you have your choice sites like Digg and Fark and GoogleNews that hunt down and tag stories for your pleasant engorgement.

I did almost miss this, for the most part though. Orson Scott Card is now on the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which is that group that created the oft mocked "Gathering Storm" video.

That doesn't surprise me, really. OSC's views on gay marriage are fairly well known. He's Mormon, after all, and he has that long running column over in the Mormon Times where his opinion has been made explicitly clear.

My first reaction to all of this was almost instinctual at this point: I remind myself that there's a reason that I don't buy his books new any more. Granted, it was Empire that spurred that more than his politics but the revelation of his beliefs certainly provided that last little FU that kept me from turning back.

Buying them used is fine, of course. No money goes to him or his publisher from that.

Then I reminded myself that it doesn't really matter whether I buy his books. He's trying to get a movie made of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow and he's going to be filthy rich and tithing loads of cash to an organization that hates me anyway.

But the movie has been floating around and hasn't been made yet. It's always in the works but never in production, seemingly.

Using this neat little writer's trick I learned somewhere, I imagined that I was a cappucino and coke snorting secular capitalist movie producer drone. Would I, as aforementioned mindless drone, want to make this movie still? Yeah, the book won some awards that I'm not familiar with and all my assistants assure me that it has a huge following but I also know that if I make this movie now I'm probably going to have to end up explaining to the gay director, star, and four fifths of the production staff why this author's position on gay marriage is not reflected by the production company.

With all of the crap that's been thrown, sometimes litterally, at the Mormons over Prop 8, there could even be protests. Protests with A-list stars speaking out against this movie just because author is in the news right now.

So, even though this property may eventually make me, the cappucino and coke snorting mindless secular capitalist movie producer drone, lots of money in the future, right now it would probably be a good time to quietly renew the movie rights and hope that gay marriage is decided soon so that this author can market his work for us rather than against us.

(Just found this, might be interesting to some)

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5 Comments:

  • Holy crap.
    Ender's Game is one of the best books I've ever read and one of the handful (literally, can be counted on one person's fingers) of books my boyfriend actually likes. The interview behind that link shocked and disappointed me. The books are still good, but I've lost a lot of respect for the man.

    There was one quote from him that made me laugh out loud:

    "In our culture today, there are a lot of people who use the fundamental Christian doctrine -- to love your neighbor, to forgive all men -- only as a weapon to silence Christians! The effort to hold Christians to this particular standard is very unfair."

    Classic!
    It's unfair to hold Christians to an ethical standard which is one of their own fundamental doctrines!

    *goes and gets drunk and watches lesbian porn*

    By Blogger Fiat Lex, at 1:45 AM  

  • I've read an awful lot by Card, including all of the Ender's Game books, and I range from loving to merely liking all of them.

    Some of his other stuff, Homecomming and Alvin Maker is merely tolerable, and there are at least two things that I think are moderately bad: Magic Street and Empire.

    But yeah, I loved Ender's Game and Speaker of the Dead.

    By Blogger Spherical Time, at 1:32 PM  

  • I hadn't heard that Orson Scott Card had joined NOM, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

    He's a nasty arrogant bastard who complains a lot about people not caring for his "stance" against gay marriage.

    By Anonymous Jesurgislac, at 6:56 PM  

  • Flat Lex, what Card meant was that people twist those Christian doctrines in order to use it against Chrsitians that they want to silence. Loving one's neighbor and forgiving people does not preclude Christians from upholding the moral dictates of the Bible--or from expressing their views in a free country.

    Spherical Time, I am intrigued by your understanding of "hate." It seems that it means one of the following, or perhaps both: (1) saying something that you do not like and (2) wanting to stop you from something that you wish to do. That's not my idea of hate at all.

    If it were, then you and the other people on your "side" would be guilty of hate, too.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:05 PM  

  • To me, "dislike" of homosexuals is your basic belief system, RG.

    It doesn't usually cross into "hate" until you start working against our ability to live our lives the same way that you live yours, voting in that way, or encouraging others to do so.

    In this case, the Mormon Church of which OSC is a member, does the last. It is therefore hate by my reckoning.

    I'm sure you would consider it hate if I tried to pass legislation that would forcibly divorce you from your wife. Please be aware though that I do support such legislation. You have no right to have a spouse, and your children do not deserve their mother (or, if she gets custody, their father).

    By Blogger Spherical Time, at 9:45 PM  

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