Oddball Author Orson Scott Card Hates Gays, Martin Scorcese, Parking Meters And Turtles

If it seems like we’re a little obsessed with homophobic sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card, its because we are—and with good reason. Card has been a legend in the genre since the release of 1985 Ender’s Game and, when the film version of the book comes to theaters in 2013, it could spark Twilight or Hunger Games-level fandom. 

With Card, 60, poised to be the next Suzanne Collins, his personal opinions on gay people are worth harping on. Especially since so much of his work has a creepy, pedophile quality to it. (Try reading his bizarre version of Hamlet, where the Danish prince’s father molests all the young male characters. )

This isn’t a situation where an artist or creator just belongs to a faith that condemns homosexuality, a la Twlight‘s Mormon author Stephanie Meyer: Card, also a Mormon, has advocated overthrowing the government if it tries to redefine marriage. He’s written that “the dark secret of homosexual society… is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse.”

And now, in an op-ed column in Greensboro, NC’s Rhinoceros Times, he’s written in support of North Carolina’s Amendment One, which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman:

“Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people’s desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles.”

The New York Daily News posted some other things Card says he can’t abide. It’s a rather odd list, frankly:

College professors: “The American intellectual elite has been almost completely overwhelmed by a revolution that requires our smartest people to turn off their brains, accept the received opinions, and do nothing to disturb the ruling class.”

Larry David: “A comedian that I have never found even slightly amusing.”

Magnolia trees: “I hate magnolia trees.”

 Charlotte, NC:“I hate the traffic and simply don’t have any wish to repeat the experience. What does Charlotte have that isn’t everywhere else?”Pet turtles: “Turtles need a lot more care and special handling than I’m willing to give them.”

Liberals: “I’ve been to your little soirees where you sip your wine and cheese and smoke your weed and mock the hideous monstrous people who shop at Wal-Mart and eat at McDonald’s”

Martin Scorsese: “Absolutely awful with human beings on the screen. His characters are all buffoons.”

Parking meters: “A meaningless imposition on the public.”

Woody Allen: “An absolutely terrible director.”

Seriously, this guy comes off like a White Supremacist Dave Barry.

Oddly, Card reserves his praise for Think Like a Man, the latest cinematic minstrel show from Tyler Perry, who’s got his own unresolved issues about sexuality. “[Like a Man] is funny without being gross [and] sexy without being pornographic,” writes Card, “and it makes you think about relationships between men and women.”

Right, just like Madea’s Family Reunion.

Of course, Card’s gift for fiction doesn’t just extend to his novels. In his column, he claims gays have finally liberated themselves from all forms of legal oppression:

There’s no need to legalize gay marriage. I have plenty of gay friends who are committed couples; some of them call themselves married, some don’t, but their friends treat them as married. Anybody who doesn’t like it just doesn’t hang out with them…

There are no laws left standing that discriminate against gay couples. They can visit each other in the hospital. They can benefit from each other’s insurance.

So what’s the bigger lie: that there are no laws that discriminate against LGBT people or that Card has gay friends?

Source: New York Daily News