I once read a diatribe against gay marriage by the celebrated science fiction writer Orson Scott Card-- a diatribe that had a lot of big words and fancy language, trying to look intelligent, but had no real arguments. Assertions that children needed both a mother and a father, but no real explanation why.
And one overly literal interpretation of the law: "Gays already have equal marriage rights. Just like heterosexuals, they have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex." (Well, if we're going to be that sophomoric, we can even go a little further and say that men and women don't currently have equal marriage rights: unlike men, women have the right to marry men, and unlike women, men have the right to marry women. How unfair.)
But I was still able to read and enjoy his work, for the same reason I can enjoy Tom Cruise movies despite disagreeing wholeheartedly with his religious beliefs. The man does not equal the actor, and the man does not always equal the author, either. I enjoyed Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, and Shadow of the Hegemon.
Sure, he had some scattered references to "every living creature's natural desire to reproduce," and I would balk for a moment at his apparent assertion that I wasn't a living creature, but then I would ignore it and read on.
But when I got to Shadow Puppets, I drew the line.
(Spoilers beyond this point.)
Bean, the main character, because of a very disadvantageous genetic condition, has decided not to have children. His friend Petra wants to have his children, and she keeps pestering him about it.
Then, at one point, they meet a man who "has no desire for women." It is not 100% clear whether he is gay or just not interested in love and sex at all. But he clearly serves as a mouthpiece for the author.
He claims he is about to get married to a woman who already has some children of her own, and spend the rest of his life living with her and raising her children, despite having no desire for her.
And he gives them this long lecture about how the only way to feel truly fulfilled in life is to raise children together with a member of the opposite sex. They don't have to be your own children, and you don't even have to like this member of the opposite sex-- but raising children with a member of the opposite sex is the instinct that's programmed into every living creature, so if you don't do it one way or another, then you won't feel that your life was worth living.
And this convinces Bean; he gets all weepy and realizes deep in his heart that this man is right. That's where I stopped reading.
When I had read Orson Scott Card's essay on gay marriage, I had taken his comment about equal marriage rights as an over-literal interpretation of the phrase "equal rights," twisting it to fit his own views while choosing to ignore the fact that gays can't be happy being married to the opposite sex. But now I realize he's even crazier. He actually thinks gays will be happier in heterosexual marriages.
Furthermore, he thinks I am incapable of being happy in my own lifestyle-- a heterosexual marriage with no children. Never mind the fact that I panic, curl up in a ball with my hands over my ears, and rock like the stereotypical autistic, if I spend more than fifteen minutes trying to be in a position of control over a child. Never mind that screaming babies and whining toddlers make me want to physically smash something if I even overhear them in the supermarket. He actually thinks I would be happier if I were raising kids.
No more. I'm not reading his books any more. That's it.
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