Orson Scott Card Issues Unsatisfying Response to ‘Ender’s Game’ Boycott

By  · Published on July 9th, 2013

Just last week, the trailer for The Boxtrolls spoke of gay marriage with kindness, simplicity, and acceptance. Now author Orson Scott Card has done the opposite. The online group Geeks Out recently called for a boycott of the upcoming Card adaptation Ender’s Game, urging viewers to stay away from the film. The group believes that anyone who thinks anti-homosexuality laws should be strictly enforced (as Card does) should not be allowed the opportunity to make tons of money from a blockbuster film starring Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield.

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly, Card responds to the boycott and to anyone else questioning whether his views are a part of Ender’s Game:

“Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984. With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot.

The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state.

Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”

Card speaks of tolerance, but still seems to have it all backwards. Even though he accepts that gay marriage will soon become legal in the USA, he refers to the issue as “moot” (would that issue be the fight for legalization, or just the idea of gay marriage altogether?) and paints happily married gay couples as potential bullies, eager to start throwing stones at those who held them down. Card should probably learn to display some actual tolerance – this isn’t the first boycott he’s faced (earlier this year, his co-written issue of “The Adventures of Superman” was boycotted into oblivion) and chances are it probably won’t be his last.

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