[LINK] "Orson Scott Card isn't the right man to write Superman"

[rfmcdonald]

Andrew Wheeler's essay at The Guardian's Comment is Free makes obvious, correct points about DC Comics' decision to get noted homophobe Orson Scott Card to write for them. As good as Card is, he's a bigot. In American public life, homophobia is one bigotry becoming increasingly unacceptable, and increasingly costly, as it should.

Superman is a good guy. More than that, Superman is the best guy. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1932, he's the archetypal superhero, a man of enormous power who places himself in service to the powerless. To borrow a famous phrase from the 1940s Superman radio serial, he stands for "truth, justice and the American way".

It's hard to reconcile Superman's principles with the values of science fiction author Orson Scott Card. As reported by the Guardian on Monday, DC Comics, a division of Warner Bros, has hired Card to write a digital comic featuring the iconic hero. The move met with an outcry among fans because of Card's ugly views on homosexuality, and some called for a boycott or demanded that Card be fired.

To say Card does not appear fond of gay people is to put it lightly. In his 2004 essay, "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization", he created a sinister innuendo-laden portrait of "homosexual society" grounded in experiences of "disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse". It reads very strangely if you value truth.

In 2009, Card joined the board of the National Organisation for Marriage, a group at the forefront of the fight against same-sex marriage in the United States. NOM uses alarmist propoganda to convince voters to prevent gay people from enjoying the rights and reassurances of marriage. It looks very strange if you value truth and justice.

In 2008, in an op-ed that's now missing from the Mormon Times website, Card said that Americans might respond to broader civil rights by changing the government "by whatever means … necessary". It sounds very strange if you value the American Way.

Card's principles do not align with Superman's, though it's unlikely that Card will write a story about Superman spreading disinformation, robbing people of their rights or overthrowing the government. Yet, if DC Comics knew about Card's well-publicised views, why risk alienating parts of its audience by hiring him?