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Weighing in on the Orson Scott Card Kerfuffle
I'm weighing in on the Orson Scott Card kerfuffle, the one where he rewrites Hamlet to be about the evils of homosexual parents and this brings further to light his homophobia, as on display in this 2004 speech. I wasn't going to comment because if ever there was preaching to the choir, it's here in this corner of DW/LJ. But then, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
umadoshi linked to this other kerfuffle about YA novels being rejected for writing gay characters, and I realized that outside my little fantasy corner of the world the prejudice remains so glaring that it behooves as many voices as possible to speak against it.
So, to Card's 2004 speech: his basic contention is that anything other than a married man and woman raising children in the pre-1960s model is destructive to civilization because a married man and woman are needed to provide children with a stable family and role models of both genders without which children are very likely (though not, he acknowledges, guaranteed) to grow up troubled and low-functioning. There is a germ of a point here. As someone facing low-income single, adoptive motherhood with a 90% female social circle, I know intimately that my life will be less stable than if I had a full-time, live-in partner. I will have to search for male role models, who are important to children's understanding their society (and to just not feeling deprived relative to their peers).
Card's fallacy, however, is to mistake correlation for causation. What do children actually need to have a good chance of growing up functional? From all I've ever learned--being, among other things, the daughter of a child psychiatrist--they need one stable, caring, consistently available adult. Yes, two is nicer, but one is enough to save civilization from drowning in dysfunctional human beings. Beyond that, it's certainly helpful if the kids have economic security (and parent(s) who aren't stressed about money); it's helpful if they have multiple supportive adult role models, including role models of both sexes.
Here's where there's some correlation: single parents tend to be poorer (and more stressed); gay parents often have to search a little farther afield to find role models of both sexes. Unmarried people may, on average, be less committed couples than married people, though honestly I'm not sure how statistically true that is anymore. However, singleness, gayness, "living in sin," being divorced and sharing custody, etc. are not the causes of the problems.
Evidence of this is rife. A few anecdotal examples: the bright, well-adjusted (and clearly cis-gendered) boy I tutor who is the son of two lesbians; the daughter a colleague raised as a single lesbian mother, who has a terrific, stable boyfriend and an MA in conflict resolution; the school friend who hasn't seen her father since she was two (and never had a step-dad), who has been happily married for almost twenty years and is raising two wonderful kids and has a great relationship with her still single mom; my friend's young son who divides his time between his bisexual mom's house and (not his biological) dad's house and is one of the friendliest, happiest, smartest little boys I know. Card acknowledges that there are exceptions, but no, this is not exceptional.
The causes of the problems are the lacks: lack of sufficient economic and social support for families, lack of childcare resources; lack of a living wage for a one-family income; lack of opportunities, incentives, and social patterns for extended family and friends to band together to create a "village" to raise a child. The solution is to remedy these lacks: support living wages, subsidized childcare, close-knit neighborhoods, job creation (keeps people from having to split apart to find work), mentoring, and caring for rather than exclusion of all sorts of families.
Card's call for a return to the 1950s is treating the symptom rather than the disease. Moreover, it's treating the symptom perniciously because his denial of the legitimacy of all types of adult partnerships except one is a denial of people's right to love. I can think of nothing more destructive to an individual than not permitting them to openly love (or perhaps to even guess they might love) the person or people who could be their soul mates, unless it be not letting a person acknowledge their own identity, as in the case of my transsexual ex, whose married, Mormon mom and dad raised him to believe that almost all people are selfish, uncaring hypocrites he must forever be on guard against: this goes far beyond whether he tells people he's trans. It underlines a pattern of distrust in everyone about everything. This is a person who grew up lacking a caring, available adult. He was only ever surrounded by people who wouldn't listen and wouldn't see.
In sum, Orson Scott Card has no moral right to tell me that my being a parent will almost surely contribute to the destruction of civilization. He has no right to tell me that I may not form whatever kind of consensual relationship I choose with the people I love. I will, however, agree with him on one thing: it is likely too late for his side to turn the tide. I'm sorry that frightens him, but I heave a huge sigh of relief that it's true.
umadoshi linked to this other kerfuffle about YA novels being rejected for writing gay characters, and I realized that outside my little fantasy corner of the world the prejudice remains so glaring that it behooves as many voices as possible to speak against it.So, to Card's 2004 speech: his basic contention is that anything other than a married man and woman raising children in the pre-1960s model is destructive to civilization because a married man and woman are needed to provide children with a stable family and role models of both genders without which children are very likely (though not, he acknowledges, guaranteed) to grow up troubled and low-functioning. There is a germ of a point here. As someone facing low-income single, adoptive motherhood with a 90% female social circle, I know intimately that my life will be less stable than if I had a full-time, live-in partner. I will have to search for male role models, who are important to children's understanding their society (and to just not feeling deprived relative to their peers).
Card's fallacy, however, is to mistake correlation for causation. What do children actually need to have a good chance of growing up functional? From all I've ever learned--being, among other things, the daughter of a child psychiatrist--they need one stable, caring, consistently available adult. Yes, two is nicer, but one is enough to save civilization from drowning in dysfunctional human beings. Beyond that, it's certainly helpful if the kids have economic security (and parent(s) who aren't stressed about money); it's helpful if they have multiple supportive adult role models, including role models of both sexes.
Here's where there's some correlation: single parents tend to be poorer (and more stressed); gay parents often have to search a little farther afield to find role models of both sexes. Unmarried people may, on average, be less committed couples than married people, though honestly I'm not sure how statistically true that is anymore. However, singleness, gayness, "living in sin," being divorced and sharing custody, etc. are not the causes of the problems.
Evidence of this is rife. A few anecdotal examples: the bright, well-adjusted (and clearly cis-gendered) boy I tutor who is the son of two lesbians; the daughter a colleague raised as a single lesbian mother, who has a terrific, stable boyfriend and an MA in conflict resolution; the school friend who hasn't seen her father since she was two (and never had a step-dad), who has been happily married for almost twenty years and is raising two wonderful kids and has a great relationship with her still single mom; my friend's young son who divides his time between his bisexual mom's house and (not his biological) dad's house and is one of the friendliest, happiest, smartest little boys I know. Card acknowledges that there are exceptions, but no, this is not exceptional.
The causes of the problems are the lacks: lack of sufficient economic and social support for families, lack of childcare resources; lack of a living wage for a one-family income; lack of opportunities, incentives, and social patterns for extended family and friends to band together to create a "village" to raise a child. The solution is to remedy these lacks: support living wages, subsidized childcare, close-knit neighborhoods, job creation (keeps people from having to split apart to find work), mentoring, and caring for rather than exclusion of all sorts of families.
Card's call for a return to the 1950s is treating the symptom rather than the disease. Moreover, it's treating the symptom perniciously because his denial of the legitimacy of all types of adult partnerships except one is a denial of people's right to love. I can think of nothing more destructive to an individual than not permitting them to openly love (or perhaps to even guess they might love) the person or people who could be their soul mates, unless it be not letting a person acknowledge their own identity, as in the case of my transsexual ex, whose married, Mormon mom and dad raised him to believe that almost all people are selfish, uncaring hypocrites he must forever be on guard against: this goes far beyond whether he tells people he's trans. It underlines a pattern of distrust in everyone about everything. This is a person who grew up lacking a caring, available adult. He was only ever surrounded by people who wouldn't listen and wouldn't see.
In sum, Orson Scott Card has no moral right to tell me that my being a parent will almost surely contribute to the destruction of civilization. He has no right to tell me that I may not form whatever kind of consensual relationship I choose with the people I love. I will, however, agree with him on one thing: it is likely too late for his side to turn the tide. I'm sorry that frightens him, but I heave a huge sigh of relief that it's true.