Why I’m okay with Card working for DC

I’ve already done a long ranty ramble about this on Twitter, but some of you may not follow me there. Probably due to the high volume of tweets I produce. A totally valid fear, I assure you. But it seems DC is hiring Orson Scott Card, and it’s got some people pushing a petition to have Card fired without producing any work. You’d think with me not liking Card’s views on gays that I’d be down for this petition, but I’m not.

Here’s my dealio, yo. A boycott of Card’s comics as they come out is one thing. It’s voting with your dollars. But a petition to have him fired for his views outside of his work opens up the possibility that a religious group of equal size and vitriol can have a gay writer removed from any staff position as well. What’s more, it’s kind of douchey to hunt a guy down at every job and deny that he be employed just because you don’t like his views on a given topic.

Let’s say that I one day decided to organize a petition to have Card’s books pulled from Amazon based not on their content, but on Card’s anti-gay views. Word would get around, and a group of religious folks might get together and demand that Saving Gabriel be pulled from the bookstore, because my premise that Christianity is as much fiction as the next myth offends them. That’s not even the most offensive thing I’ve ever written. Soon, I’d have titles being pulled left and right because Amazon had no choice but to heed the collective will of those offended.

Free speech is a two-way street. It means that I can talk about racism and sexism and other social problems even if it offends other people for feeling like I’m calling them out. But it also means that people like Card can hate my guts and wish laws were passed against people like me. If I want to find some way to shut him down, I open up the way for the other side to shut me down too.

And here’s something to ponder. Orson Scott Card has a big audience. People who claim to hate his views will still read his work with an open mind. DC is looking at those numbers of book sales while factoring his position. Do you think DC would want to hire me to write a new queer-friendly book? Not with my sales figures, they won’t. But Card’s got a market pull that makes him look like a safe bet.

Now, if you decide to boycott him, that’s okay so long as you also find queer friendly titles to support at the same time. That’s making your opinion heard, but your opinion will be balanced by the people who choose to buy Card’s stuff anyway. That’s how freedom of speech works with this modern world. You choose not to support people you disagree with, or you choose to support the people you agree with. (Or you choose to ignore their personal views and base your purchases on what interest you. Also a valid option.)

When you write a petition asking DC that Card not be allowed to produce any work, you are practicing a form of job discrimination that you wouldn’t want placed upon your allies. And yet, if DC accepts firing one writer for being anti-gay, the same tactic can remove a gay writer, or even a straight woman. If you practice job discrimination instead of a boycott, you are begging the other side to attack us, and it won’t hurt you. You’ll still keep reading the same titles you like, and one less ally working in the field is no big deal. But to them, it’s a lost paycheck. And believe it or not, writers do still need paychecks to keep doing what they love.

Getting back to my Amazon example, let’s say a group of folks banded together because my being openly trans and bi is offensive to them. They’ve never even read my books, so their whole gripe with me is simply existing without guilt. So they whip up a campaign to pull all my books and deny me a major platform for getting my crazy ideas out to the public.

This is considered a fair tactic already for many books that the public considers offensive, and it’s very much a slippery slope that allows for censorship on all topics under the guise of free speech. I’ve heard before, “They can say what they like, but that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to profit from their views on Amazon. Amazon can decide who they want to stock, and dropping a book from the market is not censorship.”

But, if Amazon, a global market, begins policing content based on the majority rule, a vast array of authors and titles could be removed with only a handful of requests from one community. Then yes, Amazon is actively participating in a censorship campaign, and it doesn’t matter if the writer is gay or anti-gay. If people believe that only certain opinions should be aired in public or profited from, then they do not believe in free speech no matter how loudly they shout that they do. You have the right to complain about someone else’s opinions, but when you actively work to pull the platform out from under the speaker, that’s an effort to censor them. Period.

It sucks that I invariably end up having to defend people I loathe, but it seems like some people believe the religious right is just this little minority, and you can shout them down. But while you’re patting yourselves on the back for being such great allies, the religious right is attacking us, and we’re a real minority, representing a small cross section from every other minority. When the religious right hits us with their vastly superior numbers, we lose. They have much bigger numbers, and they can dismantle most efforts we make at having an equal place on the public platform.

Card and I are both writers, but he sells a few hundred thousand books. I’m still somewhere below my first 5,000 sales after a few years of prolific output. Card writes mainstream stuff, and I write weird shit that’s reflective of the abusive reality I grew up in. Card is popular, and I’m not even a blip on the radar.

I don’t like what he’s said and done, but I don’t wish him to be treated as a pariah, because I already know what that feels like, and I truly would not wish it on my worst enemy.

Freedom of speech is meaningless if you actively work to silence views you don’t agree with. The same tactic could later be used to silence you too. It could very well happen that you could be denied a job over voting a certain party, or for supporting certain organizations. It’s not freedom of speech then. It’s job discrimination, and it’s a slippery slope to allowing the religious right free rein to silence your GLBT allies.

Or put more simply, vote with your dollars, but don’t deny the man a job for his personal views unless you’d also like to see me unemployed for being trans.