Well, there goes Orson Scott Card again

[solarbird]

Courtesy emrecom: Mr. Card has a new column out, with the usual theocon rhetoric against queers, calling same-sex marriage the end of democracy. And that's all fun, and includes one part I personally consider more amusing than usual:

How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years.

Please remember that his "mildest of comments" includes the insistence that all us faggots must be illegal and subject to arrest at any time. Specific requirement, specific goal, specifically argued for by him in his writings.

I suppose the "mild" part comes from not arguing for summary execution.

But the real fun comes towards the end, when he starts screaming WOLVERIIIIIIIIIIIIIINES!!! and pretending to ask rhetorical questions:

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. ...

Why should married people feel the slightest loyalty to a government or society that are conspiring to encourage reproductive and/or marital dysfunction in their children?

...

If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?

What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

Now remember, he's not threatening violent revolution. He's just wondering how long before "married people" do.

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

The ironic thing is that his religious brethren already allowed the federal government to redefine marriage in a major way 100 years ago (plural marriage no longer allowed), in a way that went against his religion at the time, and they seem to have done just fine, thrived really, despite that.

[meowse.livejournal.com]

The part that really gets me is this one:

Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue.

(emphasis mine)

Sorry, but the "tradition" he's claiming here defines marriage as a permanent bond (ask the Catholics, or Jesus ("what God has joined, let no man put asunder")). I really have to wonder what's going on there, when his "traditional" imperative contains such an obvious alteration as "or semipermanent".

Ah, well, it's all a load of shit anyway.

[solarbird]

This may - and I speculate here - be a Mormon issue creeping in; iirc, Mormonism - particularly fundamentalist Mormonism - says marriage extends into the afterlife, and most (other) Christian denominations specifically don't. So if you include the afterlife idea, then Morman conceptualisation of "marriage" would be more permanent than non-Mormon Christian conceptualisations thereof.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

he's threatening the overthrow of the gummint? BRING THAT TERRORIST DOWN!!!!

[solarbird]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!

[mhaolain.livejournal.com]

Links to Mr. Card's diatribe have been circulating around the net a lot recently, so I checked it out. His language reads as if he's become mentally ill. A strained, irrational series of projections and arguments against the boogy-man in his soul.

He's got a lot of work to do on himself.

[solarbird]

I got a lotta hammers I could loan 'im. Also a table saw! And a router. That might help!

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Nice how he hides behind "married people," as if we're a monolithic and repressed class that just happens to share his views, so that he doesn't have to take responsibility for his own calls for homophobic revolution.

Guess what, Orson? Not all married people agree with you. I'd say the vast majority of even those married couples who have a problem with same sex marriage would realize that your idea of revolution against a government that allows same sex marriage is insane.

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was kind of hoping this would spread. He's seriously, like, the one author I can pinpoint whose grasp of fantasy is tighter than his grasp of reality.

... OK, OK. Does Hunter S. Thompson count? William S. Burroughs? They're all in the same club, now. (PS, if you pull one letter from the most revered angel in Catholicism? You get 'Gabrie,' which is probably Latin for "Have some cheese." Mormonism's most revered angel is 'Moroni.' Just sayin'.)

[loopback.livejournal.com]

I'd say HST had an almost nightmarishly strong grasp on reality while he was alive, and that's what led him to write the things he did in the way he did. His F&L On The Campaign Trail and the piece he wrote on the murder of Ruben Salazar by the police in LA was incredible.

In many ways the world missed out by not being ready to accept someone like Thompson as a serious investigative journalist, because he was so off-the-rails that he could dig the truth out of people by virtue of his own seeming nuttiness.

[devichan.livejournal.com]

THIS married person, should a "separate-but-equal" clause be established nationwide that allows for "civil unions," plans to get divorced and sue for my right to a civil union. :)

[kissare.livejournal.com]

This pisses me off to no end. I like (some of) his books so damn much, and it drives me CRAZY to hear him spewing such hatred. I wish I'd never paid for the books. It's like so much old classical music, or Wagner operas - how can such nasty people create such beautiful works? :(

[solarbird]

Or Dave Sim. I love High Society and Church and State, his pre-zomgwtf books. However, I wouldn't be in the same room with him unarmed, as he does not consider me a person, and I know where that kind of shit goes.

Once he dies, I'll buy copies. That's kind of my rule. I'll take the genuinely worthy work, but only once they're dead and can't benefit.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I say a bunch of us should get close enough to him that he gets gay cooties.

[solarbird]

I interviewed him once, before I know about the ZOMGWTF. He actively liked me. I still have that transcript somewhere. The whole queer thing never came up. I wonder how quickly that'd have turned.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Wrote a few good stories, he did. But when it comes to this issue, at least, that, ah say, that boy is about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. (/foggy)

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn

Does he not understand that not everyone gets married?

[solarbird]

Of course! Queers don't! OR THERE'LL BE CRANKY OLD SKIFFY WRITER HELL TO PAY

[foibos.livejournal.com]

Mork calling Orson ... Mork calling Orson ...

Na-nu?

...

Anybody home?

*space crickets chirping*

[denelian.livejournal.com]

as aside - that excuses NOTHING, btw - even if he had known that you were not hetero, he might have liked you anyone. OSC is an old pro at hating "Gay People" but having "Gay Friends"

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

Dude has serious, serious issues. Child molestation is a strong undercurrent in his early short stories, with a recurring theme of transcendence through capitulation ("Unaccompanied Sonata", the "Songbird" stories.) It squicked me out even as a child; I've never tried to read any of his longer work. Somehow he went from doing the "Secular Humanist Revival Meetings" at conventions in the late '80s, to...this.


Well, fuck'm.

[solarbird]

"Secular Humanist Revival Meetings" at conventions in the late '80s
wait, what? He did what when and who now? Him?

Damn. I had no idea.

Huh.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

Google it.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

Something broke in his head around 1990. Maybe the LDS church yanked his chain, dunno. But the poison is old and deep.

[solarbird]

That's unfortunate. Oh well.

[mhaolain.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks for the alert. I'm thinking of something Elrond in LotR said.

'This is grievous news concerning Saruman,' he said; 'for we trusted him and he is deep in all our counsels. It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill. But such falls and betrayals, alas, have happened before.

"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Still relevant, after all these years. If they got George Lucas, they can get you too.