Orson Scott Card, Homophobia, and Hamlet's Father

I recently read a very scathing review of Orson Scott Card’s reimagining of Hamlet, called Hamlet’s Father. According to the review, Hamlet’s Father is a “nightmare of vitriolic homophobia,” casting the old king as a paedophile who turns Horatio, Leartes, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern gay by molesting them.


From the review itself:

“Here's the punch line: Old King Hamlet was an inadequate king because he was gay, an evil person because he was gay, and, ultimately, a demonic and ghostly father of lies who convinces young Hamlet to exact imaginary revenge on innocent people … Hamlet is damned for all the needless death he inflicts, and Dead Gay Dad will now do gay things to him for the rest of eternity: "Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."

This review has gained traction all over the web. I saw it on io9, but people are talking about it in all sorts of places and most of them are slamming Card as a bigot. It got so bad that Card released a statement defending himself, saying that the review was dishonest, as Hamlet’s Father contained no gay characters at all. He said that he had written many sympathetic gay characters in his career, but he had been unfairly labelled a bigot because of his views on marriage.


In his own words:

“Because I took a public position in 2008 opposing any attempt by government to redefine marriage, especially by anti-democratic and unconstitutional means, I have been targeted as a "homophobe" by the Inquisition of Political Correctness. If such a charge were really true, they would have had no trouble finding evidence of it in my life and work. But because the opposite is true -- I think no ill of and wish no harm to homosexuals, individually or as a group -- they have to manufacture evidence by simply lying about what my fiction contains.”

I have to admit to a certain amount - which is to say, a lot - of confirmation bias when it comes to Orson Scott Card. I deeply disagree with Card’s beliefs - which include campaigning against gay marriage in the US - so if a review or article makes him out to be a monster I tend to believe it. But no amount of confirmation bias alters the fact that in his comment about the review, he essentially says that although he has nothing against homosexuals, he doesn’t ever want them to be able to get married. Remember that this is something that he wrote to show people that he wasn’t a bigot. Also, when he writes pieces like this, wherein he says that homosexuality is a sin to be rejected, it’s not hard to see why people think that he’s a homophobe.


I know that people say you should separate the artist from his or her work, but it’s harder to do for some people than others. I have a scale I use when it comes to the creative work of people who aren’t the nicest folks in the world, where I compare the quality of their work with their level of unpleasant/crazy, and whichever side “wins” determines how I treat their books or movies or whatever. For someone like Russell Crowe, for example, who is a really good actor, but is a bit of a jerk to interviewers sometimes, I don’t have any qualms about watching his movies. Sure, I’d prefer it if he was nicer, but the flaws aren’t big enough to detract from the quality of his work. For someone like Roman Polanski, who is a rapist and a coward - a dramatic description, I know, but not inaccurate - there’s nothing that would want to make me watch a movie he’d made. I must confess that I’ve never actually read anything that Card has written, so I don’t know where he falls on my scale, but I find his personal politics so repellent that he’d have to be one of the best writers on the planet to make me want to support him. I’m not sure I’d be able to be objective about his work, but I’m not entirely sure I want to be.


In the interests of being as fair as possible, I will say that Card’s views on homosexuals are not the most extreme I’ve ever come across. He says that he doesn't hate homosexuals, and that he abhors violence against them. He says that he has met homosexuals that have been good people, whose company he has enjoyed, and that he even considers to be dear friends. But again, it’s important to frame these comments in their proper context; they might be dear friends, but he considers their sexual orientation to be something wicked that they should resist. He also rejects the idea that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexual people, and says that teaching children that homosexuality is OK is harmful.


In his own words:

“It has become clearer and clearer to me … that gay activism as a movement is no longer looking for civil rights, which by and large homosexuals already have. Rather they are seeking to enforce acceptance of their sexual liaisons as having equal validity with heterosexual marriages, to the point of having legal rights as spouses, the right to adopt children, and the right to insist that their behavior be taught to children in public schools as a completely acceptable ‘alternative lifestyle.’”

“It does not take a homophobe to recognize how destructive such a program will be in a society already reeling from the terrible consequences of "no-fault" divorce, social tolerance of extramarital promiscuity, and failing to protect our adolescents until they can channel their sexual passions in a socially productive way. Having already lost control of the car, we now find the gay activists screaming at us to speed up as we drive headlong toward the cliff.”

Card can talk about how the “Inquisition of Political Correctness” is making things up about him, but the sad truth is that you don't have to put words in his mouth to make him sound like a bigot. It’s actually a little galling: He wears his prejudice on his sleeve, and then tries to make out that he’s the one being being treated unfairly. If he wants to complain when people are genuinely making things up about him, then I support him 100%, but the only person he has to blame for his reputation as a homophobe is himself.