The film “Ender’s Game,” based on the novel of the same name, came out in theaters on Nov. 1 to a great deal of controversy and proposed boycotts.
The book’s author and film’s producer, Orson Scott Card, is well known among science fiction fans for his medieval views and bigoted rants against the so-called “homosexual agenda,” as well as his membership in the National Organization for Marriage. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates NOM as an anti-gay group known for repeatedly propagating "known falsehoods."
“If (gays and lesbians) insist on calling what they do ‘marriage,’ they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is. … They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won't be married. They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes,” Card wrote in 2004.
LGBTQ groups have organized boycotts of the film, including a MoveOn.org petition where people can pledge to refrain from going to see it.
Predictably, those who support Card and his views, or even those who opposed boycotts as a political messaging tool, are up in arms as well, claiming that those boycotting the film are attempting to censor Card and his right to free speech and are mounting "savage, lying, deceptive personal attacks."
Among such critics? Card himself.
“I have had ample opportunity to observe that some supposed proponents of liberty for homosexuals do not believe in freedom of speech for anyone who disagrees with them,” Card wrote in an Oct. 18 essay on a messaging board for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (of which he is a member).
The situation is very much like the controversy surrounding Dan Cathy, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, whose July 2012 comments about same-sex marriage likewise inspired boycotts and backlash. The key difference, of course, is that Cathy only spoke of the “audacity” of those wishing to “redefine” marriage.
Card, however, subscribes to the abhorrent belief that members of the LGBTQ community identify as such because of past abuse or trauma: "The dark secret of homosexual society — the one that dares not speak its name — is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse."
Such claims imply a predatory nature of homosexuality, which is false. This view hearkens back to the American Psychiatric Association’s original definition of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, possibly brought on by trauma — however, the APA removed homosexuality from the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973.
Those who share Card’s distasteful and dehumanizing beliefs about gays and lesbians are entitled to believe that way and to say so in any manner they choose.
This is not, however, what boycotters of “Ender’s Game” are protesting. A boycott does not equate to censorship. It doesn't mean that Card may not express himself (which he never fails to do).
If we are to believe that spending or not spending money can be construed as political speech, a boycott is itself an exercise of free speech. Opposing a boycott cannot be a violation of that freedom, just as a boycott itself cannot be a violation.
This is a constantly misunderstood facet of First Amendment rights.
In any case, the thing about “Ender’s Game” is that it’s a wonderful, thought-provoking novel with engaging, witty characters.
I may choose to see the movie or I may not. I may choose to see it and donate the amount of a ticket price to charitable organizations that serve the LGBTQ community. I may choose to never crack the spine of another Orson Scott Card novel again.
The choice belongs to every individual.
Card’s personal views belong to the marketplace of ideas, but novels belong to the reader. I choose to embrace the messages of tolerance, diversity and open-mindedness, which are embedded, perhaps inadvertently, throughout the narrative.
As Rany Jazayerli wrote in his essay, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” “Ender’s Game” is “a gift so sacred that even Card himself could not be allowed to understand what it meant.”
Reach the columnist at skthoma4@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @savannahkthomas
