He’d rather fight than switch.
From the eleventh paragraph (of sixty-two) of Orson Scott Card’s most recent online column for the Mormon Times:
This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals—the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays.
“This term,” of course, being “homophobe.” From paragraph sixty-one:
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.
Emphases added. —The rest is a mish-mash of embarrassing evolutionary psychology and patently false assertions of the dictatorial rôle played by dictator-judges in dictating that the legislatures and executives of Massachusetts and California (to say nothing of the popular vote itself) must accept same-sex marriage.
I can only say what I’ve said before, to other homophobes: Mr. Card, do you not dare to presume to defend our marriage. Same-sex couples have been getting married all around us for decades, and they’ll keep on doing it, whether you manage to hold the line or not: men will kiss their husbands as you write your brave polemics; wives will continue to feed each other cake, whatever you think is right. They’ve always had the love and the cherish and the honor, and the recognition of their friends and family, and nothing you can do will take that from them. Nothing. All you can manage is to rewrite the tax code. Make it more of a grinding hassle to deal with insurance and wills. Keep loving families apart at times of illness and accident and death. Condemn children to needless, nightmarish legal quagmires. For this you would tarnish the rings on our fingers, and turn our vows into ashes.
Look to your own marriage, sir, and defend it if you must.
But leave ours the hell out of it.
Is he still writing on this subject? I almost sent myself to the hospital from the sheer rage and hurt his views on the subject induced in me, back when I first read them in college.
It took a really effective Ash Wednesday service and a lot of prayer to remove that fury from my heart.
By one of those cosmic coincidences that often surprise me, I read this post of yours just before reading my son to sleep, on the eve of my twelfth wedding anniversary. My husband and I have been married (if only in a religious ceremony conducted by a Baptist minister) for twelve years, and the license for our upcoming legal marriage (to be conducted by a UCC minister,this time) which is scheduled for early September.
That said, we are probably the stuff of OS Card’s worst nightmares. Not only are we two men ‘married’ to each other, but I’m white, my husband is black and we’ve adopted two boys. Add in the fact that we drink alcohol and coffee and we’ve hit the Mormon quintella, at the very least.
Congratulations, Robert! —The twelfth anniversary is silk and linen; I suggest summer suits and snazzy ties.
Bright news to share: I went to the official OSC website (Hatrack River) and found a thread on the forum about this column.
Almost all the commenters, the majority of which appeared to be forum regulars and Card fans, were dismayed by and opposed to the views he expressed in the column. The