See: http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html for one of the reasons people find him repellent.

Choice quote (after he had a chance to reflect on the response to his essay):

"...it has become clearer and clearer to me, since writing this essay, that gay activism as a movement is no longer looking for civil rights, which by and large homosexuals already have. Rather they are seeking to enforce acceptance of their sexual liaisons as having equal validity with heterosexual marriages, to the point of having legal rights as spouses, the right to adopt children, and the right to insist that their behavior be taught to children in public schools as a completely acceptable "alternative lifestyle." It does not take a homophobe to recognize how destructive such a program will be in a society already reeling from the terrible consequences of "no-fault" divorce, social tolerance of extramarital promiscuity, and failing to protect our adolescents until they can channel their sexual passions in a socially productive way. Having already lost control of the car, we now find the gay activists screaming at us to speed up as we drive headlong toward the cliff."

"Hey, i'm sure you're a really nice person, I just think you should be legally discriminated against and denied certain rights solely on the basis of your sexual orientation because I have some ill-informed and antiquated ideas about The Sanctity Of Marriage (tm). Beer?"

Doesn't really seem realistic to me.

Oh, let's hear what he has to say:

"Furthermore, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated by our fear of the world's censure into silence in the face of attempts by homosexuals to make their sin acceptable under the laws of the polity, then we have abandoned our role as teachers of righteousness."

"The repentant homosexual must be met with forgiveness. Even hypocritical homosexuals must be treated individually with compassion. But the collective behavior of the hypocrites of homosexuality must be met with our most forceful arguments and our complete intolerance of their lies."

"That a few individuals suffer from tragic genetic mixups does not affect the differences between genetically distinct males and females."

Yheaaa, sorry, but he actually is a bigot.

I want to define what's scientific because after 50 years in pessimistic scenario religion can be considered scientific and pope might be The Chief Scientist.

When you start identifying a group, and placing restrictions on rights which you enjoy, you are taking a hateful position.

Somehow the lack of throbbing, purple-veined meatsicks must render it less compelling.

EDIT: withdrawing the above childishness, turns out he does write extensively about divorce.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-11-13-1.html

A quick search suggests he regularly incorporates criticism of divorce into his other writings.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2007-01-07-1.html

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-03-28-1.html

The second point OSC makes is sourced in a discomfort from social disruption. There is a tendency to blame many current state of affairs on the gay movement.

I think in summary we should all reflect on the amount of insight this guy has and the capabilities of prediction he possesses. Just by simply observing things, he makes some deep accurate predictions that are very remote in the future. The article you linked to seems to be written in 1990.

"The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-black position is criticized and/or boycotted."

"The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-woman position is criticized and/or boycotted."

"The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds an anti-Jew position is criticized and/or boycotted."

Yes. Yes it has.

The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds a pro-privacy position is now criticized and/or boycotted.

The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds an anti-polygamy position is now criticized and/or boycotted.

Yes, lets all give up reasoned discourse and simply attack those who disagree with us.

Wait, what? You're upset? You want to fight back? You think that just because you're a human being you should be given the same basic consideration under the law as anyone else? HOW DARE YOU PERSECUTE ME BECAUSE OF MY BELIEFS!

Just so you know, this is what you - and Orson Scott Card - sound like when you try to use this "argument."

Let's say, someone beats their wife brutally, but they're very good at bowling, and always treat you respectfully. Would you feel good about going bowling with them, regardless of how much objectively correct things about bowling they could teach you? Or would you realize the world is full of people who know as much and more, who don't come with quite such a bad aftertase?

The distinction you are attempting to draw about attacking others makes little sense given the examples I cited. Opponents of polygamy, supporters of Obamacare and opponents of privacy all favor attacking others (polygamists, people who don't buy health insurance, and people who don't cooperate with spying). Most public policies involve attacking someone - all laws are ultimately enforced at the point of a gun.

You haven't answered my second question. Have you at least thought about it?

Also, consider this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_controversies#Wagner.27s...

It's just music! Why can't people "just listen to the music" which itself has nothing to do with antisemitism? Oh, but that's different, because it strikes close to home for them, right? Well no, the same goes for any homosexuals or those having empathy for them. Or people who just don't like the idea of the US sinking into chaos (violent revolution) because some truly believe that what homosexuals do in their bedrooms or marriages is to blame for their own abysmal performance in both.

You could argue that you personally don't mind listening to Wagner, but that's not an argument for what others should do - surely you understand that. Likewise, the person that started this subthread didn't say everybody should not listen to OSC, but simply asked if anyone else has the same reaction as them. That's perfectly legit, and making such a fuss about is just silly.

Is the article really that good? It seems like the only good thing anyone has to say about this article, is that what someone else said in alleged attack of it is fallacious...? I found it cringeworthy personally.

Lastly, it's not like someone said OSC made good points with X and Y, and then someone else replied "but he's a homophobe!". The ad-hominem complaints are silly anyway: the post itself is only on here because of who wrote it, not because it's that good, and a negative ad-hominem is kind of a valid response to a positive ad-hominem.

I suspect the reason this jumped out at me is that it's literally an attempt to ostracize a hollywood writer for his other views, and being the good liberal that I am (culturally speaking) this jumps out at me.

So I guess at this point I'm walking away with far less certainty of my views than I started with.

As for the article, you are right that it's not position #1 good. It's a well written version of the same sort of fluff that HN has way too much of, nothing more.

If we are to say that the only acceptable view is that being gay is as good as being straight, then we must logically do the same for the following

* Being transgender * Being a sex worker * Eating shit for sexual gratification (no chance of AIDS!) * Having sex with animals (without harming them)

I'm not sure that any of the above are very immoral, but I'm not comfortable with teaching that they are ideal, or advisable. I'm also not comfortable with teaching children that becoming a sex worker is as good a career path as any other.

We as a society need to maintain a balance between protecting everyone's rights, and allowing people to have their own personal tastes and opinions. This balance should be based on enforcing the most basic laws that guarantee a person's right to life and safety. Gay people should be free from threats of violence. But so should everyone else, including groups who will never be considered as oppressed by liberals, like nerds in high school. As for tastes and preferences, this isn't something we can decide in a top down way.

Isn't that arguably a part of the anti-bullying push?

However this reasoning only applies to certain kinds of bullying, such as bullying of gays (and [1] argues it doesn't even apply in this case). Nerds are bullied because of their actual weakness, not because they are different per se. The sub-culture is a response to bullying, not vice versa.

In order to deal with this kind of bullying, we would need a new narrative in which people have an innate tendency towards picking on other people, and that if not kept in check, this can reach to physical violence and other extremes.

[1] http://owldolatrous.livejournal.com/14079.html

edit: I'm not from the U.S. so I don't know everything as far as minority rights go over there. In my country there are laws agains racism, and they're trying to pass anti-homophobia laws too. I do have a problem with both of these, though, as anybody expressing a racist opinion can be simply jailed without bail. I find the U.S. stance on free speech much more... how do I put it... free?

To go a step further, to those who want to continue denying gays rights on the basis of their sexual orientation, they think that allowing gays to marry is just as bad as jailing someone for expressing a racist opinion. They literally do not understand the difference between these two things, hence the virulence of argument.

I think this helps society blow of some of its racism and bigotry in a safer way than just repressing it, but it's an ongoing struggle between too much freedom and too little, like everything else in America.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

It is no longer about rights but now it is about acceptance

(a) There are still lots of rights that many states and organisations do not recognise. (b) There is no difference between rights and acceptance/legitimacy.

In a society that hopes to remain free, there must be a difference between these. There must be space for dialogue, for experimentation, for uncertainty, for personal preference, for disagreement. "Everything which is not prohibited is mandatory" is a totalitarian motto.

For example, although I find Nancy Grace repulsive, illegitimate, unacceptable, unwatchable, and generally awful, at some level I realize she has the right to produce her execrable television programs, and I don't seek to undermine that right.

Perhaps I'm quibbling over a minor point, as I certainly have no quarrel with criticism and boycotts of OSC (or of anyone really), even though I don't choose to take part myself.

Are you actually saying that we should have "discussion" or a "debate" about whether some people are people?

Also, as somebody already pointed out, change in Orson's comment homosexual with 'black' or 'Jewish' and see how it reads.

This person is still alive and relevant and subject to social acceptance. And even with dead people, we are reluctant to cite them if they have a bad reputation - it's only that we make certain historical allowances based on the perceived historical distance to us.

Especially in this day and age, it's easy to find alternative authors on pretty much any subject who convey the same ideas without the amoral baggage. Let's recognize them instead.

Do you think this essay contains unique insights? No way. It's here because it's written by Orson Scott Card.

However, this is not the level I want this considered at. Instead, I invite you to look at what you're comparing here. There is OSC's philosophy of hatred on one side, and Alan Turing's sexuality on the other (which was never about harming anyone and hence could always be considered ethically neutral). You can't meaningfully argue that the two are similar. Yes, they share the trait of being socially unaccepted at the time, but that's also where the similarities end.

I'm not proposing we shun people because their beliefs are unpopular. I'm talking about making a choice not to elevate people who are unethical.

First of all, I assert being gay is not unethical. And it never was. Sure, it was considered amoral, but that's not the same. Could you elaborate on why you think an ethical argument could be constructed in favor of being militantly anti-gay?

That's some handwaving.

Again, your argument looks at it with present eyes.

How so?

> It's impossible for us to have any non-modern perspective.

Sure, but we can try.

> My point is that there is a difference between a belief and biological trait.

I mean, I get your point and I agree with it but again, that does not really tell us anything about ethics in the past.

Which of the two do you believe?

1) There is an objective Correct Set Of Beliefs, and we're closer to it now then ever before, hence you can judge people in the past. 2) There are no objectively correct beliefs, hence people in the past would be just as correct to say that you have nasty beliefs.

If #1, where do you get your objective set?

If #2, why do you make your statement?

I hope you don't take the inconsistent position many people do: say there's nothing objective when others judge you, but act as though there is when you judge others.

(Personally I believe there are objective truths, and each generation gets some things right and other things wrong. But that's a Christian view.)