See Enders Game or Not? Debate flares on Facebook over Homophobic Orson Scott Card

My friend and mentor Edward Viljoen (senior minister at  Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa) posted on his Facebook wall yesterday this tidbit:

 "Orson Scott Card, not one penny of mine will you see. No Enders Game for me. I don't expect you to

change your views to match mine. I just prefer not to help fund your anti marriage-equality activism with my pennies. I'm just a small voice in the wilderness yet when I go to sleep on opening night I will do so knowing I just made a donation to Positive Images instead of to your movie."

This sparked a lively debate on Facebook about whether or not one should withhold one's pennies from artists where you like the product but detest the views they espouse.    I'm a big Orson Scott Card fan.  My kids and I have been looking forward to the movie for a while.   I think it's as simple as this, in the the cosmic democracy, it matters what we choose. This is a person that has opinions and views and he is famous, and he's about to be more famous, and he uses his fame to express these views and push this viewpoint. We don't have to choose to support a platform for hate. And we don't have to hate Orson Scott Card either. We can know that he is brilliant and we can be sad.

Edward also posted this piece by Orson Scott Card from the Mormon Times as reported on Joe My God Blog:

"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."

My God, even in op eds, this man writes science fiction!



My daughter says that notwithstanding OSC's homophobia it's imperative to see Enders Game on the big screen and that it will not work to watch illegal downloads because they're such low quality.  The conversation between us sparked an idea of how to see Enders Game without supporting OSC or ripping off the theater:

Go to a multiplex, buy a ticket for another movie and then see Enders Game.  Thoughts?