What A Card or End This Game

The gay organization Geeks OUT is calling for a boycott of Ender's Game, the big-budget science fiction movie, because of the views on homosexuality of author Orson Scott Card:

Do not buy a ticket at the theater, do not purchase the DVD, do not watch it on-demand. Ignore all merchandise and toys. However much you may have admired his books, keep your money out of Orson Scott Card’s pockets.

I've never read Ender's Game or any other Card stuff, and don't really know much about his politics, though apparently he's a practicing Mormon who has spoken out against homosexuality.  Regarding same-sex marriage, he's written "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."

Card has responded to the call for a boycott:

"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.

The first point seems relevant, but I'm not sure how much his interpretation of the Supreme Court opinion matters--the boycott is about his views on homosexuals, not whether the gay marriage issue is still alive.

But the real question is should you boycott someone's work if he has ugly views?  Everyone has to answer that individually, but in general it bothers me when someone isn't allowed to work based on his politics. (And this isn't the first time for Card--he's been dropped from a DC Comics project as well.) This is the essence of the McCarthyism, after all, and I thought we were opposed to that.

It wasn't that long ago just being gay was frowned upon.  Would Geeks OUT have thought it fair play to organize a boycott of gay authors?  And if they respond that's different, that was bad intolerance, I can only say they must be pretty confident their views will always win the day.

People believe different things, sometimes things we can't stand.  But I don't see the need to find out everyone's politics before I decide whether or not to buy their products.  For that matter, I often purchase (well, did before the internet) newspapers and magazines that publish pieces I find hateful--if we all followed Geeks OUT's philosophy, would we have to refuse to buy any periodical we don't already agree with?

I doubt this boycott will have much effect on the box office of Ender's Game.  And, for that matter, the success or failure of the movie will have little to say about the issues that interest Geeks OUT. After people see the film, they're certainly free to protest Card's views as much as they like.  He seems to be losing, by the way, so it shouldn't be that hard to be gracious.