I'm strongly considering giving Orson Scott Card the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he doesn't want me to be killed, and therefore I might go see Ender's Game, the movie they've made out of one of his books.

Now, I'm not certain that Orson Scott Card doesn't want me killed.1 I mean, after all, I think same-sex American couples should be able to get married. I've voted and advocated for that position when I've had the opportunity. I strongly supported the decriminalization of "sodomy,"2 and generally oppose the use of government power to enforce personal and religious opposition to homosexuality. Orson Scott Card thinks that any government that agrees with me and fails to prevent gay marriage should be overthrown by any means "possible or necessary":

Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary. . . . 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.

Orson Scott Card has also called for private sexual contact between consenting adults to remain criminalized, though to be fair as far as I know he has not specifically advocated violent overthrow of any government that fails to imprison sexually active gays. Nuance alert!

Card has called, in short, for the government to be the tool of his personal religious preferences, and for it to be overthrown by (implicitly) force if it fails to satisfy those preferences. In addition to being an opponent of criminalization of sodomy and a supporter of gay marriage I am a vocal opponent of the use of government to promote individual religious dogma, which further puts me at odds with Mr. Card.

Now, Mr. Card only speaks of bringing down by any means necessary the government if it fails to ban gay marriage to satisfy his religious views. He doesn't specifically threaten supporters and fellow-travelers and thus and such. However, violent revolutions often result in violence towards those who have supported the ancien régime. Mr. Card rails against the term "homophobia," against decreasing acceptance of his views, and against social mores with which he disagrees; it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility that he will consider me, a promoter of that which he hates and a supporter of government policies he views as destructive of his family, to be bloodworthy.

But I've decided to give Orson Scott Card the benefit of the doubt and assume he doesn't want me dead!

I was moved to this assumption by his moving plea for tolerance in the wake of calls for a boycott of his movie:

Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984. With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state. Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute. Orson Scott Card

Here Orson Scott Card has shamed me.

First he's shamed me by correcting my ignorant and mistaken impression that the equality and humanity of gays was a political issue prior to 1984. Next he shamed my meager grasp of the law, which had led me to believe that the impact of the Windsor decision striking down DOMA on states that currently ban gay marriage is unsettled and will likely require years of litigation to sort out. I'm sure that when gay couples married in, say, California seek legal recognition in his state of North Carolina, Mr. Card will file an amicus brief asserting that the matter is now settled and that North Carolina must recognize the marriage. I believe in Orson Scott Card's consistency and good faith!

Most of all Card has shamed me in my grievous misunderstanding of tolerance. I had assumed that tolerance meant that it was a good thing for a free people to let consenting adults engage in private sexual conduct without government interference, or allowing loving consenting adult couples to marry even if some religious traditions oppose it. I assumed that tolerance meant that unpopular views — at one time the view that homosexuals should not be jailed, and now the view that they should be — ought to be addressed by the marketplace of ideas rather than by government force. But I was wrong! Tolerance means that people must be able to revile gays and gay marriage without any social consequence. Tolerance means that I should go see a movie by someone who makes me want to vomit — who wants to overthrow the government by force for doing something I agree with, who might or might not think I deserve to die so that his social policies can trump mine — because botcotting his works would be oppressive to him. Tolerance means that if he calls me a barbarian, and suggests that my friends have dark desires to seduce his children into homosexuality through the machinery of the state, then I should smile and go see his movie, because otherwise his speech might be chilled and he won't be as free to call me a barbarian and my friends child-craving tyrants.

I've already learned so much from Orson Scott Card just from this brief plea. Imagine how much I can learn from a whole movie based on his book! I just can't wait. I thought that I held Card in contempt and that I would express that contempt like a civilized man, by eschewing his society, directly or indirectly, in an exercise of my freedom of expression and association responding to his. But it all right, everything was all right, my struggle is finished. Mr. Card has helped me win a victory over my intolerant self.

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