This was what I was thinking. I’d like to separate two issues, here, one is the effect of refusing to patronize bigots, and the other specifically relates to Card.
If I don’t go to the store in my neighbourhood because the owner make public homophobic or racist statements, then I feel like I am setting up a bad situation. I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish by doing this - do I want to drive him out of business? Do I want to communicate to him that I disapprove of what he said? And if I want to tell him I disapprove, then what do I hope he will do? Do I want him to recognize that people are people regardless of their sexuality? Or do I want him to complain about gay people only to his own family so that his grandchildren are the only ones who have to shake their heads at him? Do I want him to resentfully put on a good public face to save his livelihood?
I don’t like it when people say and do bigoted things, but even moreso I don’t like the idea of a society where we isolate the bigots. I don’t want that store to be the homophobic store where the homophobic people go and no one else does. I don’t want to divide the community into the bigots who interact only amongst themselves, fomenting their hatred, and the rest of us who don’t have to be made uncomfortable by them. That seems like a recipe for a worse place rather than a better one.
Now Card is not a local store owner. He is one of the lucky people who gets to make a living off of his art, and I don’t think he is entitled to that (nor is anyone else). I don’t think a boycott of this movie threatens his livelihood. On the other hand, as a person of note, he is much more able to create the kinds of divisions I just discussed. As Daneyul says above, the buses of homophobes who have never read the book will stop at chick-fil-a for lunch on their way to the movie. He has the opportunity to realize that as the “progressives” will never accept him, he could make more money by doubling down on homophobia.
Us vs. them thinking is what creates bigots in the first place. I don’t have sympathy for bigots who say that they are oppressed for their bigoted views, I just don’t think we can possibly benefit from segregating the bigots from the rest of us. A boycott of a person because they said and did bigoted things feels like it’s pushing in that direction.
