Dear Mr. Card...

[lydamorehouse]

Dear Mr. Card (and really any homophobe out there),

First, I'd like you to know that ENDER'S GAME was, and remains, one of my all-time favorite books. I'm mildly dyslexic (I was born that way,) and it usually takes me days, sometimes months to read books that I really enjoy. I read yours in a single day.

I've known you were a homophobe for some time. I read an interview in Salon.com with you several years ago that made your rather ugly views quite plain. However, after reading this review of your newest release, HAMLET'S FATHER (Subterranean Press), I just wanted you to know that as a gay woman (I was born that way, too,) I spent this morning destroying the heterosexual world and corrupting American youth by driving my son to school, coming home and doing the dishes, baking some zucchinni bread for my partner to take to work to share at her Friday meeting, and getting pizza dough ready for tonight's dinner.

I can see why you're scared of me.

I'm off to volunteer at my son's school right now. You should really make sure I have no civil rights, because I'm sure to do something even more dangerous in a moment. I might... I don't know... bake some cookies later.

Fan of some your work, not of your thinking,
--Lyda

P.S. Since you're dealing with Shakespeare, Mr. Card, you might want to consider this rather famous line of his: "The Lady doth protest too much..." and, though I do not know you at all, I have noticed that the Republican Senators who shout the loudest about how evil teh gays are always seem to end up caught with rent boys or getting spanked in adult diapers.

Just sayin'

P.P.S. I've been thinking a lot about why *I* don't write about being gay, and I think it's because, quite frankly, it's pretty boring. See above.

Comments

[fullygoldy.livejournal.com]

Ack! You are the most subversive person I (sorta) know!

Also, you're kind of my hero.

[naomikritzer]

Don't forget the part of your day where you destroy and corrupt the heterosexual world by writing straight romance.

(Apparently there are right-wing columnists who think that romance corrupts women by creating this totally unrealistic expectation of a guy who's good in the sack, interested in what you say, and who might even be able to cook.)

[lydamorehouse]

Oh yes, it's part of my daily grind to give straight women unrealistic expectations of men (by sekritly writing them as WOMEN with a penis!!! Bwha, ha, ha,ha,ha!!!)

Actually, to be fair, I do think this is one way in which I actively promote the gay agenda: I randomly send Shawn flowers. This drives the straight women in her office INSANE. Shawn has reported that a few of them have been known to mutter, "I should date a woman. She'd know how do be romantic."

(10% is not enough, recruit, recruit, recuit!!)

[lydamorehouse]

Do... be...

doo be, doo be, dooo

[naomikritzer]

So, regarding his overly vehement protests... a lot of people have been linking to this 2004 or 2005 screed Card wrote, ranting about gay marriage.

One of the things that strikes me, looking through it, is how idyllic he seems to think a same-sex partnership would be. Heterosexual marriages are WORK because men and women are SO PROFOUNDLY DIFFERENT and the only thing that keeps the whole thing functioning is all the special treatment for heterosexual marriage! If you start letting gay people get married then everyone will want to be gay because it would just be so much easier.

FYI, Mr. Card, if you're reading this -- if you're gay, then gay partnerships are going to be a lot easier for you than heterosexual marriage because you get to live honestly, at peace with yourself and with who you are. Other than that, though -- the marriages of my gay friends are very comparable to mine. Sharing your life with another person for decades on end, in a partnership of equals held together by the glues of love and lust and respect and communication -- sometimes it's the easiest thing in the world, and sometimes it's profoundly hard. And it works that way for everyone. Being two guys together is not magically easy. (If it were, the Residential Life departments of small residential colleges would have a lot fewer roommate disputes to mediate.)

[lydamorehouse]

Exactly. Which is why I feel perfectly comfortable writing straight romances. I figure I know romance. It doesn't much matter if it's gay or straight. I also know how hard (and deeply amazing) it is to stay in love for twenty-five years.

[naomikritzer]

You totally know romance.

And you only forgot the penis that one time. :g:

[baka-kit.livejournal.com]

(10% is not enough, recruit, recruit, recuit!!)

Angling for that toaster oven, are you?

[lydamorehouse]

Actually, we HAVE one!

When Shawn and I considered buying it, we sat in Menards trying to tally up whether or not we'd "earned" it. ;-)

[seawasp]

I love you. In a purely platonic way.

Specifically because you are apparently able to do what I do -- love the good books even if the producer of them turns out to be a dick. So many people I see hate Card (or other authors) and suddenly dump their works wholesale.

I love Ender's Game. (the sequels, not so much). I won't stop loving that book even though Card himself seems to be going farther and farther out on a really depressing limb.

[lydamorehouse]

I was good with the sequels up to XENOCIDE. I actually really loved SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD because of that great conversation between the piggies and the Queen Bug about how the human mind will make order out of chaos.... I'm probably misremembering it, but I used to re-read that all the time.

As for loving awesome books by dopey people, well, I'm even weirder because I'll go on record as saying I still love "Mad Max" despite the freak Mel Gibson has turned into.

[naomikritzer]

Also, re the protesting too much, I wanted to leave you the comment I left on Scott Lynch's LJ, so I will just quote myself.

Art doesn't die when artists make mistakes. It dies when they stop trying. In service to his viciousness and self-righteousness, Card has locked himself away from his art. (<--said Scott in his post.)

Years ago, I saw a musical version of Martin Guerre, written by the team that wrote Les Miserables and performed at the Guthrie. I blogged about it in some detail on my LJ in 2005 but to sum up: despite a compelling story, and a top-shelf writing team, the musical got unenthusiastic reviews and never went to Broadway. I thought that the problem was that Martin was gay, and that in refusing to explore this subtext, the creators were closing themselves off from creating a truly great work. (Because on one hand, this was what the story was about. But they didn't want that to be what the story was about, because that would be controversial. So they just refused to look in that direction. And the result was a flat story that made no real sense.)

Sometimes, when I am writing something that is just not coming together, it's because there's somewhere I am refusing to look, because there's an answer I don't want to see. And if I can make myself look there, suddenly the story comes alive.

Anyway. I think Card is gay. I think as gayness has become increasing accepted by society, he has had to devote more and more of his energy into suppressing this knowledge about himself.

Creating good art requires a certain willingness to look at the things you don't want to look at. When you are refusing to look at something that enormous about yourself and your life, I think you will lose the ability to create. I think that's what Card has done to himself.

[lydamorehouse]

That's brilliantly said, Naomi.

Brava and I think you're 100% right.

[baka-kit.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, when I am writing something that is just not coming together, it's because there's somewhere I am refusing to look, because there's an answer I don't want to see. And if I can make myself look there, suddenly the story comes alive.

This comment was really helpful in figuring out a problem I'm having with my current WIP. Thank you.

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. Totally, indisputably, awesome. Thanks.

(Also, thanks for pointing to the review. I've appreciated some of Card's work, but OMG that sounds awful.)

[starbooks.livejournal.com]

the man is a horse's ass. I don't have anything constructive to say but a giant thumbs up to you.

[silvergryphyn.livejournal.com]

This.

[john jackson (from livejournal.com)]

Hey, if you don't think a lesbian shredding a zucchini in order to bake it is subversive then Freud lived in vain.

Yeah, y'all are boring; just like us. 25 years of deep commitment. We have so much to learn from Newt Gingrinch....

Reserve our places at Thanksgiving.

[lydamorehouse]

Your places at our table are held!

As for the zucchini... that's hillarious, and I hadn't even considered that!!

[(Anonymous)]

I love this post!

I've never read Ender's Game, mostly because I just haven't gotten around to it yet, but so many of my internet and real life friends love it and go on and on about it, so I will read it someday (but I won't buy it new because that's just too much to ask of me).

[lydamorehouse]

I'm not sure I would recommend Ender's Game to everyone, but it hit me at the right time. Most libraries have it. No need to give Mr. Card any of your hard earned $s.

[sausconys-books.livejournal.com]

I love this post!

I've never read Ender's Game, mostly because I just haven't gotten around to it yet, but so many of my internet and real life friends love it and go on and on about it, so I will read it someday (but I won't buy it new because that's just too much to ask of me).

[jettcat.livejournal.com]

I have never read it either and the one book I did read I was very meh over.

My typical reaction to hate speech from figures known in the public eye is "wait.... who are you again?"

[wonderdave.livejournal.com]

Good for you! It sounds like he wrote an incredibly boring and offensive version of Hamlet. I'm glad he's being called out.