Disillusioned, but Love Will Out

I just read in the news yesterday that Orson Scott Card, an author who has done more than most to change how readers think, is openly, demandingly, frighteningly homophobic and is calling any support of same sex unions a “war on marriage.” I am struck dumb. I had no idea he was such a bigot.

The man who wrote Ender’s Game, a definitive novel about manipulation and mercy; who wrote the Alvin Maker series, about using your talents for the good of all mankind; who has written umpteen-gazillion stories of all genres, and whose talent I have admired for most of my life, has just popped yet another bubble of mine.

Way back in 2004, Card wrote, "We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction." He cares about nobility, decency and goodness, but can’t find it in his heart to accept a form of love that doesn’t match his.

I always knew he was a Mormon and always admired him for being a brilliant writer who didn’t proselytize Mormonism, although mentions of it are sprinkled throughout his repertoire. I will never understand how free-thinking, creative, artists of any kind can rationalize bigotry. I hate it when someone’s writing is so good that I believe that the writer must be a good person by extension.

Have you ever watched PBS or the animal channel when they are showing animals mating? Four or five cheetahs will all get in a long conga-line-o-sex. One lucky male hops on the female and all the other males hop on that male and each other and everybody gets off. I’m not sure the female enjoys it, but the males don’t look too unhappy.

Then there are the Bonobo apes who keep the peace through mutual masturbation. They are the unmentioned fifth ape (humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos). I think that television producers are afraid to show bonobo research because the apes are so peacefully sexual and the producers think showing non-aggressive sexuality will damage young viewers somehow. Open, relaxed sexual behavior frightens the decision-makers, who must answer to their constituency, a public face which can always be traced back to the not-so-hidden machinations of the Church.

People are so silly about sex. Love doesn’t damage anyone. Hate and fear and guilt and damnation do. Now, I'm not talking about abuse disguised as love. I'm talking about true-love, be-together-forever-love, for-better-or-worse-love, build-a-life-together-and-support-one-another-through-thick-and-thin-love. Besides, how can the Mormons, or any religious organization, object to homosexuality when the Catholics have been silently supporting it for centuries? Married to God, my eye.

When will the "God-fearing" folk wake up and realize that they are afraid of themselves and each other, and it has nothing to do with faith? The church, temple, mosque, whatever, will remain dominant so long as people are willing to subjugate themselves and their children to people propounding the veracity of ridiculous stories created by power mongers thousands of years ago.

So, sorry Orson. You've been knocked off the pedestal upon which I mistakenly stuck you. The veil has been drawn from my eyes. You're a fantastic writer but a mixed up man. Love simply is. There's no "Love is not..." or "Love is only..." You can't legally define love. Love simply is. Bigotry isn't.