Orson Scott Card (who used to write some pretty decent scifi/fantasy novels) is the latest wingnut to call for armed resistance against a lawfully elected government. Being mormon, he gives his sedition a different spin than most:
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?
what exactly is "reproductive dysfunction"? is that like erectile dysfunction? or fallopian tube blockage? how exactly would a government encourage that?
Why should married people tolerate the interference of such a government or society in their family life?
what interference? is the US government telling you how to run your marriage? no, they're not. bob and bill's marriage has absolutely nothing to do with yours, Mr. Card. i will repeat that, very loudly and slowly: A B S O L U T E L Y N O T H I N G.
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?
Look, it's a red herring! Exactly when have children been taken from people because those people taught abstinence and homophobia? They haven't. That's when. Nothing like inciting a little hysteria on your way to treason.
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.
Um, yeah. "Biological imperatives trump laws"? Really? So I can go ahead and pee in the middle of Fifth Avenue if that's where the need strikes me? Can airline pilots just go ahead and sleep through flights if that's where they happen to get tired? Did Mr. Card stop to think about that statement at all?
By the way, Mr. Card, the US government is not "fighting against marriage". You still have a right to conduct your marriage in any way you please. So do I. And now, in some places, so do gays. My marriage does not affect your marriage. So leave me out of it and shut the fuck up.
Oh, and armed revolt against a lawfully elected government? We call that treason. It's also a good way to get people killed.
Memory of Earth was a halfway decent book. It dealt with a society that had serial "contract" marriage. One man and one woman - at least for a year or two, and then they'd go out and get married to someone else.
ReplyDeleteOMG ATTACK ON MARRIAGE! ORSON SCOTT CARD HATES AMERICA!
I find it very difficult to understand the insane paranoia that some have about gay marriage. Even though I support it, I can understand disagreeing with it on religious or traditional grounds. But the notion that the marriage of a minority of a minority of people is somehow going to wreck society is just plain crazy. Yet quite a few people think gay marriage is somehow the beginning of the end for civilization as we know it.
ReplyDeleteTEH GAYZ R GONNA TAK R BABBIEZ!!!!
ReplyDeleteMost ludicrous argument yet.
It's never actually happened, but I know that it will! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI just cannot imagine how Bill and Bob or Jane and Janet getting married affects me, or my marriage, at all. It's like they think that the moment gay marriage is legal in PA, my husband and I will divorce. Just like that. For no other reason than that gays are now marrying.
That makes no sense. At all. None.
This just reeks of people like this wanting Thought Police. GASP! Someone might actually be encouraged to think different views than me! Oh,the sheer horror!
ReplyDeleteOf course their concern is that they think certain actions are inherently wrong and have no context in which they are right. Fine. Prove it.
At the end of the day they can't stand walking out their door and seeing/hearing anything that is not what they already believe/think. They like the bubble-life.
I read Ender's Game before I knew Card was a creduloid god-bot.
ReplyDeletethis upsets me so much - Card used to be a favorite author (reminds me, i need to fix my LJ where i recommended him...) i have met him more than once, he was *REALLY* nice - and what is more, he thought (for whatever dumbass reason) that my step-sister and i were partners (eeeeeeeewick! i love my sister. but, A) she is female and EEW! and B) she is my sister and ICK!) and the my niece was *my* daughter (and my sister was just my girlfriend and my nieces step-mother... i have no clue why my niece looks just like me. except that her father looks almost exactly the same as *my* father, and my step-mother and my mother could be sisters) so OSC thinks that we are a lesbian couple and congratulated us on our daughter.
ReplyDeleteand ever since then (about 7 years ago) i have been finding hateful screeds against gay people written by him (btw, my niece is the one who told him that i was her aunt and that my sis and i were sisters. i tried, but he said to me "your personal life is personal, i'm sorry if you thought i was prying or making judgements on your personal life; i was just trying to compliment you on a well behavied child, because so many parents today don't try to teach their children manners." and what could i say? i was my nieces main caretaker! because she was my niece! and my sister and her husband needed help!
probably doesn't help that my sister *is* mostly a lesbian except for her husband...)
so he goes further into the "natural imperatives" bullshit, with which i counter the 3%-10% of any mammilian population that is gay!thats RIGHT! there are GAY HORSES! GAY ZEBRAS! GAY SQUIRELLS! GAY LEOPARDS! GAY PANDAS! (actually, gay pandas explain a lot) GAY LIONS! GAY GRIZZLIES! GAY HIPPOPAUTEMOUSES (how do you spell hippo, the long real version? it is not in my spell checker...) GAY MOOSE! AND MICE! AND MEECES! EVERYTHING IS GAY!!!!!!!
(sorry about the yelling, but they don't listen!)
if a dog can do it, why can't a man?!?!?
also: he has written out the blueprint for a revolution that A) suceeds and B) looks legal. in Empire, OSC writes a story wherein the pres. and vice pres. are killed by "terrorists", and then NYC and parts of New England and the West Coast are taken over by a "liberal army" of people in mech suits, etc - this is apparantly funded by a really really rich and really really loony FAR FAR Left "Liebrul"... but really it was all manipulated by a moderate historian who wanted to be president and couldn't find any other way.
along the way there was an almost revolution staged by die-hard-conservatives in the military, a media coup both against that military movement and then FOR that movement, a politician who is actually *honest*, a lot lot LOT of "personal reflection" on how conservatism and capitialism is the best way, how being a parent meant being willing to have a LARGE family, and if you didn't want a large family you were just a selfish asshole who didn't deserve a family, more rumination on how women may be as smart as men but that intelligence is really only for the raising of children - women are just *HAPPIER* as SAHMs... etc.
i am actually surprised i was able to read the whole thing... and then i had to re-read it because i *COULD NOT* believe that i had interpreted it correctly.
i had.
it was the *last* book by OSC that i will *ever* buy
unless he recants all this bullshit, anyway.