So if I donate $1000 to the KKK and $1000 to the ACLU, they cancel each other out? Don’t think so.
So where’s the boundary. Do we boycott Mel Gibson (antisemite)? Tom Cruise (scientologist)? Chuck Norris (pro gun)? Arnold Schwartznegger (Republican)?
It’s hard to think of a clean line. One plausible one: don’t boycott people based on their speech (value free speech) but only on wrong actions. Has Card ever treated any homosexual in a discriminatory fashion?
Have you not bothered to read the thread before posting? Because that’s really obnoxious. Card is on the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage, a homophobic hate group which has, among other atrocities, offered support to the Ugandan government for its Kill The Gays Bill.
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Wow. You’re really not aware of what these guys do or did, are you?
First, Mel Gibson belongs to a catholic offshoot church that blames the jews for everything. He himself hasn’t done much, but his money goes to this church. That’s a little less odious than Tom Cruise, who I do boycott because he’s nuts. His money goes straight to scientologist causes. Nope. Too much.
As for Card, I don’t know, is supporting monetarily and organization that petitioned for a nation to execute gays enough? Cause it is for me.
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Some posters try to make a distinction between boycotting someone who expresses an opinion different from ours and boycotting someone who “actively” works to support some cause we disagree with. However, I find that distinction meaningless. Publicly defending an opinion is actively working to support it. You are publicly supporting a boycott because you disagree with this writer’s opinion on a certain issue, and that means that your belief in freedom of expression has limits. That may or may not be OK (holocaust denial, for example, is illegal in 17 countries), but please, avoid hypocrisy.
My point was that all these people are ‘undesirable’ in different ways
(I note you didn’t mention Norris—does he fall on the non-boycott
side?). I was using varying concrete examples to try to figure out what
the general principle was when deciding on whether or not to boycott.
Of course freedom of expression has limits personally. For me, that limit is where that expression turns into actively supporting the removal of inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from others. You say that’s hypocrisy, but I disagree. It is not hypocritical to have personal standards of what is right and wrong in the field of expression. People forget, there is NO RIGHT to free expression in the US. NONE. Not a single right in the bill of rights says I can freely express myself and have no repercussions.
I do believe that people should be able to freely express themselves without government reprisal, which IS in the constitution. But, that expression can STILL come with personal and private consequences.
There is no hypocrisy there. I am not asking the government to sanction OSC or Tom Cruise or any of these crazy holocaust deniers. (Which, that is a travesty, that that is against the law. It should be enough to shame them and have their actions rebuked by public opinion, not an actual thought-crime) I am simply asking that people accept responsibility for their actions.
OSC wants a holocaust amongst the gays. I don’t want him to be punished by the government, but I do want him to be rebuked and boycotted and driven out of business by the people.
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No, I do not find what you say hypocritical. I only took issue with the statement (not made by you) that this boycott was not a boycott against an author for expressing an opinion.
Honest question: do you really believe that OSC is working towards a holocaust against the gays or towards an armed revolution against the US government, as opposed to just having run his mouth?
Yes.
He has donated money and sits on the board of an organization that was attempting the former in Uganda, and he has called for armed rebellion many times in his political blogs.
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So you’re all for gay rights and marriage equality as long as you don’t have to make the most trivial of sacrifices. That’s pretty lame and very self-centered.
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At least one of us is severely disconnected from reality here, then. It might be me, because I have done little research on this issue, or it might be you, because your passion for the subject makes you subjective. In fact, I believe that you may be misrepresenting that anti-gay-marriage organization’s position because you hate it so much.
Let’s see… after an internet search I have been unable to find any material from the National Organization for Marriage (the organization whose board OSC is a member of) defending the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Curiously, I have found a statement by a similar organization (Family Research Council) denying that they support that bill:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/family_research_council_explai.html
Admittedly, the language of that statement is not an example of tolerance:
FRC does not support the Uganda bill, and does not support the death
penalty for homosexuality – nor any other penalty which would have
the effect of inhibiting compassionate pastoral, psychological and
medical care and treatment for those who experience same-sex
attractions or who engage in homosexual conduct.
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.
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A big budget movie probably can’t experience the same kind of effect that Chick-fil-a can, but Chick-fil-a definitely benefited economically from its owners being homophobic. The fact is that the majority of the population does not go for fast food on any given day, and those that do have myriad choices. A relatively small portion of the population consciously choosing to go there instead of anywhere else, and to go there a little more than they would have otherwise, will make up for a much larger portion of the population choosing not to go there at all. The supporters will lose interest over time, but so will the boycotters (who will lose interest in proportion to how much they liked to go there before - there will only be a tiny number of people who went there a lot before and then stop altogether forever).
This is a real question, not just a rationalization of a fanboy. You don’t think that Card should earn money from his movie because of the things he has said and done - and because you think he’ll use that money to continue doing similar things. Is this purely an outcome-based policy? That is, are you simply concerned that $1 more for Card is $1 more funding for hate? Is it just a proximity thing? Like, it’s okay to spend money every day knowing that some of it will circulate to hateful people and be used for odious things and some of it will go to good causes (including some of the money that goes to hateful people) but we if we can draw a bright line between our expeniture and someone who supports bad causes then that’s a problem?
We can’t, nor should we want to, create a divided economy with people we disagree with on one side and people who with the same values as us on the other. If you would have seen the movie were it not for Card’s positions, then have you actually thought about how much of your ticket might end up in the hands of a hate group?
well you have to admit it’s better than JUST donating $1000 to the KKK.
I do, but those aren’t the only two options.
I agree that publicly defending an opinion is actively working to support it. Some posters, however, seem to be arguing that people who boycott Card for his hatred of gays are being hypocritical because they do not double-check the opinions of everyone who might get money from them. I disagree with this. I should not be expected to do research on every opinion of every person whose work I might purchase. If, however, I find out that someone is supporting something like restricting basic human rights, I should take that into consideration the next time I make a purchase of their work.
You are free to express your opinions. I am free to express my disagreement with your opinions. I am also free to consider your words when deciding whether or not I want to give you my money.
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What exactly do you propose for dealing with bigots?
I am not sure this situation would be all that similar to Chick-Fil-A. I would imagine that most of those people going to Chick-Fil-A had been there before and enjoyed the food. I also think that having politicians trying to block the the restaurant from opening in their cities added to the resentment people felt and pushed them to supporting Chick-Fil-A more strongly. It is not like people are being told that they cannot buy Card’s books or see this movie. If someone is not a fan of Ender’s Game already, why would they suddenly become sci-fi fans and decide to spend both their time and their money on this movie (or his books)?
The main character in Ender’s Game exterminates a race of aliens called “buggers” who presented an existential threat to humanity.
The primary dictionary definition of “buggers” happens “sodomites” (Merriam-Webster). Card sees homosexuality as presenting an existential threat to civilization and writes things such as that openly homosexual people “cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens”.
Card is a very careful writer, and his choice of names is no mere coincidence. You really cannot separate the artist from the art in this case.
[quote=“QuibblerMan, post:190, topic:3138”]
The main character in Ender’s Game exterminates a race of aliens called “buggers” who presented an existential threat to humanity. The primary dictionary definition of “buggers” happens “sodomites” (Merriam-Webster).
[/quote]The problem with that theory is that the title character is overcome with horror and remorse when he learns he was tricked into killing off the buggers. He also learns that they, in turn, had realized they were wrong in attacking humanity and had hoped to come to a peaceful resolution before being hunted to extinction.
