The author misunderstands what Card is trying to say in response to her questions. Also, she evidently misunderstood Ender's Game quite a bit as well.
Ender was suited to be a brilliant military commander precisely because he hated killing so much. A more bloodthirsty commander would have fallen for certain traps, committed certain errors of judgment that Ender was immune to. The nuance here is that Ender's strategic advantage came from a tremendous empathy with his adversary.
In the end, Ender had to be fooled into destroying the Buggers precisely because of this empathy. He never would have been able to commit a genocide if he thought it was actually a genocide, but he could do it in the context of a video game.
And, for what it's worth, the childhood bullying delivered by Ender's brother was also a function of Ender's love for his brother. We see very soon that Ender is capable of tremendous violence, but he tolerates mistreatment from Peter because he loves him so much.
It is this victimhood which endears Ender to any reader who has felt victimized, by showing that in some cases there is great physical and moral power beneath the surface.
The author of this strange hit piece is clearly trying to rile up various reactive political groups against Card. Sure, card is a Mormon and appears somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs. He is clearly not homophobic and became defensive when he sensed that the author was trying to broach the subject which had probably caused him much pain.
Sure some people believe that anyone who doesn't advocate same sex marriage qualifies as homophobic... The author of the Salon piece clearly thinks that state recognition of same sex marriage is hugely important.
I'd argue that through his books Card has done far more good (by enlightening people about important moral issues) than any harm caused by his traditional view (restricting the word "marriage" but not the state sanctioned bond between two people).
The remarks about Card yapping and flirting suggest a very immature person wrote the article. Clearly at a certain point Card was trying to be polite and let the interview finish without incident... something that was framed as "shutting down"... Bizarre stuff.
I would take issue with your view that Card isn't homophobic.
From "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" by Orson Scott Card:
"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message to those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."
So the man actively opposes it gay marriage. He supports laws that make homosexual acts illegal. He doesn't think that gays should be protected from getting fired because of their sexuality. How is that not homophobic?
"Homophobic" gets bandied about to the point of losing its meaning. "Unreasoning fear/antipathy towards homosexuals/homosexuality" is what the dictionary spat out, and I suspect Card would say 1) it's not "unreasoning" 2)"antipathy towards homosexuality" != "evil."
I agree that the application of the word "homophobe" does not fit with its etymology. Are these people actually afraid of homosexuals, like a person with aracnophobia is afraid of spiders, or do they just disagree with some social positions, like the appropriate context and meaning of state endorsement and support for a relationship? It seems that anyone who doesn't take the envelope the gay rights people are pushing is suddenly an illogical homophobe, afraid that buttsex is going to bite and poison them.
Even an argument that homosexuality altogether is immoral and should not be socially acceptable behavior is not the same thing as being afraid of persons that perform homosexual acts; it's merely ostracizing the behavior, as one may ostracize a person for meth use, though it'd be silly to call one that supports meth prohibition a dopephobe just because he doesn't think meth use should become a social norm.
You can dislike a behavior without fearing it, and you can have rational reasons for that dislike. The term "homophobe" is applied to try and stop people from criticizing the gay rights agenda by labeling them as irrational bigots if any protest is raised.
You're absolutely right. My comment probably implied that I didn't think Card is homophobic. Rather, I meant to get across that I don't think he minds.
I'd need to read the whole article before knowing for sure how to react to that paragraph, as it appears to be part of a reductio ad absurdum -- that one would have to claim that society ought to have no laws whatsoever limiting sexual behavior in order to refute his point. This might explain his emphasis on laws, which usually boils down to an argument lauding the democratic process that got us those laws, while taking a more skeptical view on the laws themselves.
I think the issue of employment discrimination is a bit of a straw man. If an employee isn't working out he/she will be fired eventually for some reason. If a firm's corporate culture is homophobic, chances are there will be some technicality that allows for the firing of an individual in spite of any laws restricting hiring/firing reasons. I think this applies to all such laws "protecting" any group.
It is no way a straw man argument. A straw man argument is when you invent or restate the other person original argument.
In the interview he specifically stated that he supported laws that protected people from being fired based on race but NOT homosexuality.
There are certainly legitimate reasons to not support laws protecting people from discrimination. If Card had been against them in GENERAL and I had cherry-picked his opposition to those laws protecting sexual orientation, THEN it may have construed a straw man argument. But I did no such thing. I did not misinterpret his position; he was not opposed to such laws in general, but ONLY those regarding sexual orientation.
In the interview, Card says "I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that's being attempted" (emphasis mine).
Calling homosexuality "deviant behavior" upsets me, but the really revealing part, I think is the bit I emphasized. The implication certainly appears to be that (by parity of reasoning) "A homosexual does harm someone simply by being homosexual".
I think that a relatively sane viewpoint would cover the idea that being black is not something the person chooses to become, while engaging in homosexual behavior is very clearly a lifestyle choice; given that there is genetic coding for whether you are black or not, but no coding for homosexuality.
While there are many choices that all people make in the sphere of sexuality, choosing who lights your fire is not one of them. I can no more choose to find men sexually attractive than I can choose to not find sugar sweet.
I have no way to answer that without resorting to anecdotal evidence, as you are yourself doing. I could answer with quotes from the "ex-gay" movement ... but those are anecdotal as well.
I don't think there is a way to gather hard evidence without engaging in unethical conduct (that is, any psych experiment that would give data might irreparably harm people and thus would be wrong).
«Sure, card is a Mormon and appears somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs.»
Not just «somewhat», he believes that armed insurrection is justified as a response to gay marriage:
«Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary.»
This is plainly a opinion piece written to support the Mormon's role in defeating proposition 8 (gay marriage) in California in 2008 (note the date of the article). That role was controversial, see [1], and Card is supporting it here.
We don't need to stoop to the level of playing dirty politics by taking things out of context in HN.
Card's attitudes to homosexuality is enough without accusing him of things it's pretty clear he's not trying to say.
Ender was suited to be a brilliant military commander precisely because he hated killing so much. A more bloodthirsty commander would have fallen for certain traps, committed certain errors of judgment that Ender was immune to. The nuance here is that Ender's strategic advantage came from a tremendous empathy with his adversary.
In the end, Ender had to be fooled into destroying the Buggers precisely because of this empathy. He never would have been able to commit a genocide if he thought it was actually a genocide, but he could do it in the context of a video game.
And, for what it's worth, the childhood bullying delivered by Ender's brother was also a function of Ender's love for his brother. We see very soon that Ender is capable of tremendous violence, but he tolerates mistreatment from Peter because he loves him so much.
It is this victimhood which endears Ender to any reader who has felt victimized, by showing that in some cases there is great physical and moral power beneath the surface.
The author of this strange hit piece is clearly trying to rile up various reactive political groups against Card. Sure, card is a Mormon and appears somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs. He is clearly not homophobic and became defensive when he sensed that the author was trying to broach the subject which had probably caused him much pain.
Sure some people believe that anyone who doesn't advocate same sex marriage qualifies as homophobic... The author of the Salon piece clearly thinks that state recognition of same sex marriage is hugely important.
I'd argue that through his books Card has done far more good (by enlightening people about important moral issues) than any harm caused by his traditional view (restricting the word "marriage" but not the state sanctioned bond between two people).
The remarks about Card yapping and flirting suggest a very immature person wrote the article. Clearly at a certain point Card was trying to be polite and let the interview finish without incident... something that was framed as "shutting down"... Bizarre stuff.