Orson Scott Card isn't so bad

I wanted to carry on a discussion about Card that was being held over at the LGBT reddit. I want to have it here because there my view points seemed to have been just pushed aside because I was sticking up for him and most people just decided to label him a homophobe and move along. It’s really all you can expect for a somewhat biased subset of people.

Card’s claim to fame is the Ender Saga, which I really hope you’ve all read. If not, let me know. I’ll freaking buy you a copy of Ender’s Game myself.

He has always been vocal about queers. In fact, his article he wrote about people calling themselves both gay and Mormon has been in my “Interesting prose” bookmark folder for a few years now, and I think it pretty much sums what he feels. He’s not homophobic in the sense that he’d go out and kill off some butt munchers, and I doubt he’d ever even nudge someone in that direction to do that. He just doesn’t like gay people interfering with his religion, and that’s totally acceptable. Most religions have conservative “rules” you have to stick to, beliefs you must hold, and that applies especially the Latter-Day Saints. If you’re gay you’re just not invited.

In the same way that if I’m asked to an invite-only party, and you’re not, you can’t go. It’s not that the hosts hate you, it’s just that they don’t really want you there. And why should they? It’s their event. Their religion.

Same goes for marriage really. It’s a Christian thing. What right do the government have to start meddling in it? The church and state should be separate; that’s usually said to stop religion messing with laws, but it’s also true to stop law messing with religion.

I’m not sure on Card’s views on civil partnerships – different but equal. Assuming neither partner in a civil partnership wanted children (for the sake of this paragraph) I think he’d be okay with it. After all, then it’d just be a legal thing and Judges wouldn’t be fucking up his religion in ways it never wanted to be, in ways that specifically are outlawed in their rules.

Up until this point I agree with all of the above; religion should sit in one corner, and politics should sit in another, and their paths should never meet. However, I disagree with Card – not angrily, because I understand why he disagrees with me – as soon as children step into the picture.

I don’t see why gay people can’t have children. I’m pretty sure that having two same sex parents doesn’t mess up a child in any way. The heterosexual desires are inbuilt in heterosexual children, and the same for gay children. It really isn’t a choice, I’m not arguing that here, and I’d love to as I find the article Card mentions he’s going to write “soon” (back last year, so I guess it’s around somewhere). It not being a choice is what I’m basing my opinion on concerning gay people having children. If it turns out that it affects the child in anyway I’ll seriously reconsider my stance on this. I wish I could go out and look at data for how gay parented kids turn out, but I’m guessing that they’re all written by extremists, on both sides so I won’t look. But this isn’t the place for that argument (and I will delete any comment bringing that argument up, email me if you really want to).

I also disagree with him that it’s wrong to allow children to see that there can be happy homosexual relationships, and that they can be just as successful (and as catastrophically dismal) as heterosexual couplings. As a (playing-around-with-the-ideas-of) Objectivist, I’d say that every human has equal rights, and the law should promote those individuals however it can to aid their safety. Morality on the other hand should be controlled by organisations, in this argument religions, and not the government.

PS. Although I’ve only read Ender’s Game so far (just waiting till I can afford Speaker) I’m pretty sure that Card doesn’t put much about gays in his books. There’s no reason not to buy his books. Whilst boycotting is typically a good way to get a business to change their ways, refusing to buy his books isn’t going to stop him believing in what he believes in, and so you’re just missing out on some of the best writing ever. I have amazing small attention span, and can happily sit through reading his massively long articles despite him saying stuff I don’t believe in.

Finally finished Twilight

Twilight seems to be the new Harry Potter. In the way it’s taken off at least, in no way does it match it in storytelling, writing , nor even cover art for that matter. In fact, the only way it is in any way comparable to Harry Potter is that both series exploded from relative obscurity. There the comparison ends, and I feel dirty for bringing it up.

It tells the story of Bella Swan moving from sunny Phoenix to mouldy Forks. She looks on the move with dispassion, not being able to adjust to the drop in temperature she’s so used to in the desert, but that quickly changes as Edward Cullen moves onto the scene. This could have been an ordinary boy-meets-girl love story, but as it turns out it’s not, as Bella discovers Edward’s a vampire.

Work hard, play hard.

Lets make a productivity list for tomorrow, because the last ones all worked so well…

• Go take photos for my website assignment! I’m gonna take my laptop too, due to the small card capacity. I decided this should be a group activity.
• Write a tutorial on how to add a button to TinyMCE in WordPress.
• Read another chapter of Twilight. Must read this, and the next book before the next film comes out. Granted, I probably have a year, but I’d rather get the entire saga out the way.
• Look through Monday’s class notes, and maybe write a few help sheets. I’ll be working as a classroom assistant, so I should probably be more prepared.
• Wash up. Really, Shane, you have no plates left.
• Get the systems analysis work from Blackboard. I really want to ace this presentation. This is looking to be the only module I might actually fail because of stupid things, like lack of motivation for it.

Busy day tomorrow. Carnage bar crawl is in the night too.

Catch up

I’ve not done a personal update here in a while, which is odd for someone that comes from LiveJournal where it’s common practice to note down everything you’ve done since your last update, a few hours ago. I actually have a lot of drafts for computing things piling up that I should really finish up soon. Recently though, I’ve just not had the time.

Luke and Laura are now fairly frequent guests, so over the past week or so I’ve not been alone much. I love that, really. I’m definitely a person that likes to be around other people. When I’m not for a period of time (especially if I’m just sitting at my computer all night) I get mildly depressed. I’m not sure when that change happened in me though. I used to remember loving having so much time to myself, and if I were with people for too long I’d get angsty. It’s the opposite now really.

Although, I could totally do with more “alone time,” if you get me.

I’d been playing around with polysleeping for a while, sleeping more than once a day, but in short bursts. You can generally save around two hours sleeping a day and not suffer any sleep debt. Since Luke and Laura have been around though that’s totally gone out of the window; I slept from about two till twelve today.

People being around you all the time also means you don’t really get time to do chores. Today, I actually ran out of clothes to wear (that came faster than expected due to the snow) and two days ago I resorted to eating a meal out of a Tupperware container. So, today will definitely be a tidying up day.

Against Nik’s advice, I’ve decided to try and start reading Twilight. I got to the first page an immediately regretted watching the film first. It’s exactly the same. I find it hard to read a book which has no mystery. I don’t earn anything by reading those pages, and so it seems like a dull chore to me. I doubt I’ll actually finish the book, but I’ll try before the next film comes out.

There’s new TED content out which will definitely give me a few hours of things to think about and watch. TED’s always freaking amazing, and I’m constantly blown away with how awesome each of the speakers are, and how innovative their ideas are. I really hope that I create something that I can be that passionate about.

Forth day of happiness

To be honest, not much to be happy about today.

I’m kinda ill; I woke up at about nine o’clock this morning, only be to really sick. There was nothing in my stomach except bile apparently, so that’s all I threw up. Most disgusting taste ever. Even burns a little too. That happened every hour or so until five o’clock when I finally thought I could brave going downstairs.

I had planned on going to Asda today, to get meat-alternatives and other stuff I need, but obviously that didn’t happen. I’ll get them tomorrow I hope.

I suppose one good thing I’m happy about is finishing Blood Beast (Darren Shan). Though, it ended in a cliff hanger, so it’s also kinda a downer that the book finished.