Where's the line?

I believe in marriage equality.

Maybe I should be more vague about my feelings on this issue, because I have no intention of ever talking politics or religion and I want to promote a feeling of inclusiveness on this blog, rather than turn people off, but there it is.  I believe so strongly that I cannot fathom the other side.  I have had conversations with friends who are intelligent and loving, who are on the other side of this argument, but in the end I just don't get it.  I don't understand why anybody could be against someone loving someone else until death do they part.  If we have learned nothing else from history, we should know that when all else fails, even faith, it is love that remains and endures and allows people to get through the toughest of situations.  Love should be supported and encouraged.

I say all of this because I just finished reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  For years I have heard how great it is, but resisted reading it because I am not a "sci-fi" girl.  Once I started reading it, I could not believe why I waited so long. It's one of those books that transcends the genre and is so universal that even 20+ years after it was first published, the themes feel current and modern.  I loved the characters and the message of empathy for those that are different or separate from you.

And once I was through with the book, I turned to the internet to read about the other things that Card had written.  Instead, I found articles about the horrifying things that he has said against marriage equality.  I will not repeat them here.  But it made me sick.  Sick that anyone who writes with such beauty and understanding could feel the way he does about other people.  And sick that I had supported him with the purchase of his book.

Which got me to thinking, Where do we draw the line?  I will absolutely stand up for Card's right to have and express any position he likes, but I can also choose not to support him.  And then I started thinking about the inextricable link between artist and their art.  I think Ender's Game is a wonderful book and that it should absolutely be read, but in that way am I strengthening his position by giving him an audience to which he could spread his hate?

I choose not to eat at Chick-Fil-A for the same reason, I do not go to Carls Jr. because I think their commercials are sexist and promote a bad message, but I have relented on similar stances on Best Buy, Target and Arco, because I wondered if it was really worth it.  Also, is not supporting a business because of a viewpoint, really the same as holding an artist's viewpoint against their art?  Should they be separate and appreciated as different?  Maybe as an artist, I want to believe the best in my fellow artists and its hard for me when they don't live up to the expectations that their exceptional work makes me have for them.  I don't know.

I would love to hear what anybody else thinks.    

“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game