Orson Scott Card

[LostLurker]

So this was nagging at me again recently, because I wanted to get back into leisure reading again. OSC is a (mostly) scifi author who's pretty famous, and has been writing since the 70s, I believe. He's devout Mormon, considers himself a democrat in the older sense of the term (something about Truman and another name or two I forget), but pretty much sounds conservative as you can get, with a few exceptions.
That, I could live with. His Ender series (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, etc.) was extraordinarily influential for me. From reading a lot of his novels, especially earlier on (I believe he even wrote a novel with strong, primarily homosexual themes), it would be hard to tell he's Mormon, and even harder to discern his disquieting views in regards to anything other than heterosexuality.
After I found out his views, my enthusiasm for his writing evaporated. A lot of it doesn't even strike me as "Hi, I devoutly believe this, because of my faith". They come off more as someone who bears no ill will towards homosexuality but disguises a bizarre Machiavellian vision for a certain kind of society in values that appeal to the Christian base. The way he describes his views is that all gays should go back in the closet, and only sporadically should anti-gay laws be enforced, to 'set an example'.
It would be one thing if he was a rabid fanatic, but I think he's really thought it out, and that gays are just the scapegoat. I won't go into any more detail than that, as I'm already in conspiracy theory territory, but the jist is that it's depressing. Ender's Game is a masterpiece, and I still think everyone should read it. But how do I reconcile his works with his staunch views?
Any fellow former fans here who have an opinion on this?

[digsy]

I went through something very similar with OSC. I read the whole Ender series before I knew anything about OSC the man and also found them brilliant, influential books. To me they seemed to express a philosophical open mindedness and to value difference in ideas and culture. To clarify without giving away any crucial plot lines, the Ender series is essentially about mankind's desire to wipe out the perceived threat of anything different (in this case an alien species), the realisation that civilisation and sentience can come in many, many forms, and the difficulties in accepting and respecting completely foreign ways of thinking.

In the multitude of fantasy/sci-fi books I've read, I've never come across any other books that express these great messages in such a compelling way. So when I read this http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html I felt shattered - and I was surprised at how strongly it effected me. To know that someone whose written work I admired so greatly could express such hateful misinformation - not just in a 'this is what I think' way, but in a 'this is what you should think' way - was horrifying.

I still don't know what to think about OSC's books. My opinion on Ender's Game and the others hasn't changed, and I'm sure I will read them again. I felt that I shouldn't be recommending the books to my friends. I tried to read another of his series (Alvin Maker) and was overwhelmed by the Mormon preachiness of it (although I think it's intentional in that case). I certainly won't be buying any more of his books, but I think the best thing to do is apply the philosophy of the 'death of the author': the books that I read have only as much meaning as I invest in them, and the author's background has little or no bearing on that unless I want it to.

Edit: here's an interesting blog post I found that summarises the responses of a few other bloggers http://www.blogher.com/orson-scott-c...nger-many-fans

[Behling]

Love the books, hate the guy
The Ender series is amazingly written and tells a fantastic story and I highly recommend all the books to pretty much anyone.
The author is a talented writer and also an ignorant moronic jackass
For me its as simple as that
Sucks but its life.

[Meropspusillus]

Ender's game is really the only memorable one, in my opinion. The others were good, but forgettable.

Also, he's a douche.

[xequar]

Some of his older stuff is readable, but his really horrible Mormon bigotry really shows through his newer stuff.

There are better authors out there. Read their stuff instead.