Orson Scott Card 'updates' Hamlet For Modern Sensibilites, Hilarity Ensues

[The Iceman of the North]

And what is it that Boy George did that makes you go "ewww"?

Can't speak for frodostark, but could he be talking about this?

I'm sorry, but calling someone a bigot as loudly as you can pretty much is an attempt to silence.

No it's not. Calling a bigot a bigot is in no way the same thing as attempting to silence them. Attempting to silence these bigots would involve either going the 'legal route' by banning their utterance and imprison them, or the 'illegal route' of killing them.

[Sci-2]

Mind you, normally calling someone a bigot isn't an attempt to silence them, but with Card, who is afraid to write about the gays he loves save for the fact that they will redefine marriage and thus allow him and his ilk to give into their urges for sexual perversion, it might be.

"Martha, the gays are getting married, hide the dogs from little Orson!!!!!"

Let's remember when forced to confront that homosexuality is present in nature he equated being gay with the other things in nature that are horrible we should transcend...So being gay is equivalent to the worst aspects of nature...

Card isn't simply claiming that being gay is against his faith. He is demonizing a segment of the population for who they have sex with, no matter the nature of their relationships or sexual morality. (Mind you, demonizing someone for something that doesn't hurt you is pretty ridiculous anyway).

Then when stuff like Uganda happens, it is all a tragedy that arose from a vacuum. In case we're not clear on Uganda, here:

"And according to local Uganda media and human rights organization's accounts, in subsequent weeks there were indeed arrests of several suspected homosexuals; some were tortured and locked up for weeks by the secret police. Some victims described being kicked and slapped until they bled, made to urinate on each other, having skin peeling chemicals poured on their skin, or made to sleep in the same room with corpses; some were reportedly allowed to be raped by other inmates."

-http://www.blackstar...2011-01-27.html

[peterbound]

Then when stuff like Uganda happens, it is all a tragedy that arose from a vacuum. In case we're not clear on Uganda, here:

"And according to local Uganda media and human rights organization's accounts, in subsequent weeks there were indeed arrests of several suspected homosexuals; some were tortured and locked up for weeks by the secret police. Some victims described being kicked and slapped until they bled, made to urinate on each other, having skin peeling chemicals poured on their skin, or made to sleep in the same room with corpses; some were reportedly allowed to be raped by other inmates."

-http://www.blackstar...2011-01-27.html

Pretty sure OSC would claim such actions were 'god's* will' and all that jazz.

*God being a bearded white man from a planet near the star Kolob that died, and was raised to godhood, only to populate the planet earth with his spirit children.

[Sci-2]

Yeah, you know, let's take a mental break from the washed up fake ass "I love gays that will ruin the world and the Left keeps me from putting my man love on the page" Card and hear from the awesome, genuine, gajillion times better Hal Duncan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpiWXBDgS9k

[sologdin]

people on the right say things people on the left don't like: demean, belittle, bully,

not seeing the bullying, to be honest, when a well-published author is criticized by a reviewer. bullying is more like this episode, which occurred on o'reilly's show:

O'REILLY: All right. You didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. You were against it, OK.

GLICK: Why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father!

GLICK: The people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father.

GLICK: ... didn't kill my father.

O'REILLY: Sure they did. The al Qaeda people were trained there.

GLICK: The al Qaeda people? What about the Afghan people?

O'REILLY: See, I'm more angry about it than you are!

GLICK: So what about George Bush?

O'REILLY: What about George Bush? He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: The director -- senior as director of the CIA.

O'REILLY: He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: So the people that trained a hundred thousand Mujahadeen who were...

O'REILLY: Man, I hope your mom isn't watching this.

GLICK: Well, I hope she is.

O'REILLY: I hope your mother is not watching this because you -- that's it. I'm not going to say anymore.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: In respect for your father...

GLICK: On September 14, do you want to know what I'm doing?

O'REILLY: Shut up. Shut up.

GLICK: Oh, please don't tell me to shut up.

O'REILLY: As respect -- as respect -- in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians...

GLICK: By radical extremists who were trained by this government...

O'REILLY: Out of respect for him...

GLICK: ... not the people of America.

O'REILLY: ... I'm not going to...

GLICK: ... The people of the ruling class, the small minority.

O'REILLY: Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of THE FACTOR.

GLICK: That means we're done?

O'REILLY: We're done.

[MinDonner]

I also rather wonder why we (or anyone) should be overly concerned that being a "bigot" has become socially* unacceptable. As with most other examples of "being a dick in public for no good reason", I'm kind of at a loss as to why anyone should be expected to put up with it uncomplaining, especially those of us who are (or who have friends/family who are) on the receiving end of said dickishness.

*obviously not counting the still-too-many social circles where it is totally acceptable, nay, expected.

[TerraPrime]

I am a Calvinist, but I didn't run it by the group, no. ;)

Eh? Then whence the talk of forgiveness? Aren't Calvinists believers in preordination?

I'm sorry, but calling someone a bigot as loudly as you can pretty much is an attempt to silence. These days, you can cheat on your spouse, lie, steal, etc. but if someone thinks you are a bigot, then you're done for. I see this all the time where "I disagree" could be said, but instead someone's shouted down with "You're a bigot!" instead. Freedom of speech means you can do so, but it also means I can point out when I think you're flinging that term around in a bullying manner.

Are there or are there not situations in which someone is acting in a bigoted manner? Suppose you answer yes, then is it appropriate to call those people who're acting in a bigoted manner, well, bigots?

Seems to me that what you're arguing here is that what Card did, or say, does not qualify as bigotry. Because, really, if you agree that what Card said was bigoted, then it is of course acceptable to call him out on it. Or are you advocating that we should not call out bigotry at all?

Also, I am not sure if we're living in the same country, but people like Michelle Bachman are enjoying surges of popularity from a not-so-insignificant portion of our society, and she had said some very damning things about homosexual people. This is not to mention the support for folks like the late Pat Robertson, who at one point blamed Katrina on the moral failings of the U.S. in condoning LBGT people. You go to any number of conservative Churches and you would not be in want of condemnation of the sexually deviant and the morally corrupt people, including LBGT people. This victimhood that you're claiming, and which is also a pillar of Card's diatribe, is simply not true. The National Convention of the Republican Party passed party planks asserting the deviancy of homosexual marriages, for dog's sake, and I hardly seem to see any severe backlash against them in the form of their diminished influence or them being ostracized by the general public. You cite Phelps as an outlier, but he is hardly the only voice of condemnation. His is maybe the most foul-mouthed and virulent, but we are not exactly experiencing waves of inclusiveness and acceptance from the Christians in this country even if most of them are not in the same league as Phelps.

I agree that intolerance of intolerance is not necessarily a bad thing and that was very nicely put by you. But the problem is that "intolerance" seems to continually be applied by one side of the spectrum against the beliefs of the other side.

It's quite easy to get the liberals and leftists to stop calling the conservatives bigots. All the conservatives got to do is stop saying bigoted things. You know, like their fondness of asserting that same-sex marriages will destroy heterosexual marriages, or that gay people are immoral, or that our sexual activities is moralistically the same as pedophilia. That sort of thing.

If the thread(s) were, Dang, that OSC sure is a conservative jackass, I'd probably never have said anything, but somehow it's never enough to disagree, we always gotta completely bury someone we disagree with.

I don't know. Let me know how you'd react when someone tells you that the way you have sex ought to remain criminalized, that you, yourself, is a hazard to moden society, and that you're no better, morally, than a pedophile. Maybe you have indeed taken Jesus' injunction to turn the other cheek to heart, and you can forgive 70 times 7, and be just mildly annoyed at someone who says these things about you?

How can conflicting versions of something both be True? Is it possible that OSC is and is not a bigot? Is it possible that GRRM is and is not a good writer? This might be one of those agree to disagree moments, but I'm just saying that I believe there is one objective Truth behind everything; I'm not so arrogant as to say that I know it all, but I'm doing the best I can to discern it.

Because God is the final arbiter truth, just as He's the final arbiter on what's moral? If God so decrees that killing cats is moral, then it will be so, for He is God. If God so decrees that these 5 conflicting versions of His vision are all true, then it will be so, for He is God. Your insistence that there is only one objective Truth is endearing, but it matters little to God, I'd imagine.

I tried to type up a long, detailed answer, but it just seems like different understandings of life, the universe, and everything are in the way and make it hard to answer without offending you (which I'm afraid I've already done and don't want to do further). I'll just have to leave it that my religion teaches certain things that I believe to be true but that I understand that others opinions and baselines vary but that doesn't make either side bigoted.

That is simply not good enough. Wrapping a piece of opinion in religion does not free it from criticism or examination, no more than a segregationist's insistence that God created races of people separately so that they would not mingle freely together is immune to being criticized for that opinion just by virtue of claiming that the opinion originated from God. You are welcome to adhere to any number of teachings from your religion, but it's rather too convenient by far to then expect that your religion's proclamations ought to be immune from being categorized as bigotry when they exhibit the signs of originating from bigoted reasonings.

Let me be clear to draw a distinction here that what is being called bigotry is not the fact that some religions view sexual deviancy such as homosexuality as a sin. That's not the issue. I could personally care less if one religion thinks that I'm a sinner. The issues that are drawing criticism of bigotry are the extension of those beliefs, such as some group's opposition to legalizing gay marriage as a result of believing that it will cause the society to unravel, then that's bigotry, because it's a believe based on untrue and invalid presumptions about LBGT people. Unfortunately, it's often the case that one has to believe that LBGT are sinners to then believe that letting sinners marry each other will lead to destruction of society. Still, when I say someone is a bigot, it's not about their moral judgment of LBGT people, but what they try to do in the secular world.

I'd bet we'd differ on "marginalized" but I certainly have no interest in criminalizing, exorcising, or denouncing anyone because of their consenting adult relationships.

Well, perhaps you'd do well to re-consider your defense of Card, then, lest you appear to be supporting his call to criminalize and denounce LBGT people.

And kudos to you for the consistency, though I don't really agree the boycotts are necessary. My only point was that I don't often see people willing to consistently hold a line like that.

I don't think anyone is 100% consistent with their own stated morals and ethics. We all stray from the path we think we ought to be on. When done too much, one is susceptible to being called a hypocrite. But it's just as foolish to hold the fact that we cannot be 100% consistent on an issue as a refutation.

It's really more a bigger issue...Card's for sure a big boy and doesn't need a retired governor coming to his defense. But it feels like he's just an example of what happens when people on the right say things people on the left don't like: demean, belittle, bully, etc. I just don't understand why it's so hard to defend your turf without also engaging in personal name-calling (and, yes, this cuts both ways, too, but I've already told you how I feel about people like Fred Phelps).

You're again diluting the meaning of what the rightwing conservatives do. They do not merely "say things that I don't like," as if they're simply asserting something irrelevant like whether lemon is the best citrus fruit. When people like Card say that gay people are deviants who need to be kept outside of mainstream society to protect the rest of the heterosexual population, it is no longer just an opinion, like whether this red dress is more suitable than that black one. What you seem to not really grasp right now is that it is a personal attack to say that LBGT people are not worthy of being treated as equals. If you don't want to witness exchanges that involve personal name-calling, then it'd be swell if you can somehow convince the conservatives to stop dehumanizing LBGT people and to stop trying to pass laws that will keep us as second-class citizens.

Re: Iceman

Can't speak for frodostark, but could he be talking about this?

Ah, I see. Thanks for the link.

[Ormond]

Eh? Then whence the talk of forgiveness? Aren't Calvinists believers in preordination?

That's predestination. And just as not all Christians believe alike, not all Calvinists agree on exactly what Calvin meant by predestination, nor does everyone who calls himself or herself a Calvinist agree with everything they think Calvin said. His writings aren't considered scripture, after all, and he had a lot of ideas about a lot of other things besides predestination.

[TerraPrime]

That's predestination. And just as not all Christians believe alike, not all Calvinists agree on exactly what Calvin meant by predestination, nor does everyone who calls himself or herself a Calvinist agree with everything they think Calvin said. His writings aren't considered scripture, after all, and he had a lot of ideas about a lot of other things besides predestination.

Thanks for the right term there.

And I didn't know that there's disagreement on what Calvin meant on that issue. Thanks for the explanation.

[Sci-2]

Unfortunately, it's often the case that one has to believe that LBGT are sinners to then believe that letting sinners marry each other will lead to destruction of society. Still, when I say someone is a bigot, it's not about their moral judgment of LBGT people, but what they try to do in the secular world.

Firstly: Awesome post in general, better and more mature/intelligent than mine.

To this point particular point, I do think goes back to the complain of I believe Adam Smith (or was it Franklin?) who noted that there is something...base about worshiping to save your soul. I think a lot of people want to save their souls but don't actually want to emulate Christ, because the latter takes effort. And you have to give up porn which has high circulation in the red states...you know, along with divorces and adultery in its leaders.

So these "Christians" are looking for the economically cheapest way to get into Heaven, which as history has continually shown us in all sorts of religions lies in the condemnation of others, a "grass is browner over there" maneuver to ease one's honest realization that one is not genuinely Christian as that requires something about giving away riches and doing some volunteer work...

There was one priest who even notes that it is this lack of genuine effort that marks Christianity as a failure.

[Sci-2]

State Rep. Sally Kern says gays are a bigger threat than terrorism: http://www.care2.com/causes/rep-sally-kern-gays-more-of-a-threat-than-terrorism.html

This is the kind of lunacy Card and his ilk perpetrate, to the point where an elected official would rather us spend money on combating....I don't know, Pride parades, than the people who want to blow us up.

If anyone is a threat to Western Civilization, it is people like Card.

[Yagathai]

I think perhaps we've veered wildly off-topic here.

[Sci-2]

heh, probably, sorry saw red for a second there and started frothing at the mouth.

[lokisnow]

I think OSC's take on the film The Help is fascinating in light of this debate:

http://www.hatrack.c...011-08-18.shtml

When it comes to racism in the Jim Crow era, it's not as if anyone needs to choose up sides anymore.

Anyone who still thinks segregation was a good idea is so marginalized these days that it's hard to remember anymore that once upon a time, most Americans, black and white, pretty much took segregation for granted.

Not that most people liked it -- they just assumed that it was inevitable.

It's easy to forget that, like slavery before it, segregation had to be maintained by constant vigilance.

For in the South, where blacks and whites had constant contact with each other, it was hard to keep up the impossible fiction that blacks were simultaneously so inferior that they could not be given full citizenship, and yet so dangerous that the slightest uppity tendencies had to be nipped in the bud.

*snip*

Emma Stone is luminous as Skeeter, and Viola Davis andOctavia Spencer are brilliant in their portrayal of the two black women who, unwillingly at first, become the leaders in organizing the maids to take part in the project.

Their stories are tragic and funny by turns, and they are at the heart of the movie.

*snip*

But the dark heart of the movie is Hilly Holbrook, played powerfully by Bryce Dallas Howard. Here is where The Helprises above the normal cheap-villain treatment of white racism.

Usually, racism is portrayed as being a matter of pure malice, but The Help digs a little deeper. Hilly is evil, yes, but her racism is merely one symptom of a compulsion to control other people and keep them down.

Hilly uses racism to control, not only black women, but also allthe white women in her orbit. Anyone who threatens Hilly's dominance is her enemy. Thus she puts her own curmudgeonly mother, played wonderfully by Sissy Spacek, in an institution because she only laughs when Hilly is humiliated.

This is the thing that many black people misunderstand in their assessment of white people. Racism does not cause evil: Evil causes racism.

That is, the people who are most committed to humiliating and oppressing blacks are also committed to humiliating and oppressing whites -- which is why they are able to get so many weaker-willed and more-fearful whites to go along with them.

Racism becomes their tool of choice, but their goal is complete dominance of others.

To blacks of that era it looked as if whites were united against them -- and it was true. But many whites were deeply uncomfortable with the system and glad when it ended -- they went along because it was too hard to do otherwise.

Great evils are almost always driven by a few dedicated individuals, who prey upon the fear and weakness of others to give the illusion of unity in their "cause."

And when the relatively few people who are committed to evil are neutralized, their supposedly united army of allies quite often evaporate.

Today, racism is so utterly unfashionable in most of white society that evil people have to find other "causes" to exploit in order to gain supremacy. Evil people have not decreased in number or changed their methods; they simply use different excuses for seeking to oppress whole classes of people in the name of some supposedly noble cause.

Straight from the horses mouth, so to speak, what he himself is doing and how to stop him.

[sologdin]

goodness, it's criminally simpleminded.

[TerraPrime]

Wow. Holy lack of self-awareness batman. It's almost like he just offerend a critique of his own actions with regards to LBGT issues. That amount of intellectual dissonance is dizzying to just read. I don't know how his brain managed to compartmentalize that.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I don't know how his brain managed to compartmentalize that.

The power of the gays compels him.

[TerraPrime]

The power of the gays compels him.

Well, I do find my own gay daikon of beauty very compelling myself, if I might be so bold to state this in public.

[Verboten]

This shit is so depressing. I'd like to go one week without being reminded that it's still considered socially acceptable to demonize gay men and women for wanting basic rights as a human being. I'm Canadian, and so seeing the newscast that announced gay marriage was legalized and seeing straight, Christian people actually holding rallys for gay rights was an amazing and uplifting experience for me. I think that people underestimate how difficult it is to be a teenager constantly confronted with assholes like Card who think that you are a morally disgusting wretch who will be the downfall of society.

[Sci-2]

This shit is so depressing. I'd like to go one week without being reminded that it's still considered socially acceptable to demonize gay men and women for wanting basic rights as a human being. I'm Canadian, and so seeing the newscast that announced gay marriage was legalized and seeing straight, Christian people actually holding rallys for gay rights was an amazing and uplifting experience for me. I think that people underestimate how difficult it is to be a teenager constantly confronted with assholes like Card who think that you are a morally disgusting wretch who will be the downfall of society.

Nice to see Christians upholding the true spirit of Christ. Sadly, I think there will always be weak hypocritical whiners like Card who find someone to cast stones against.

Just know there are lots of straight people who hold such "men" in contempt and disgust.