4 Big Reasons Orson Scott Card Is a Goddamn Lunatic

4 He Thinks We Needed 9/11

To be fair, Card thinks that Bush needed 9/11. Y'know, to make it possible to rid the world of Islamic terrorism ... something that, before 2001, had claimed about 45 American lives. So, in other words, totally worth the deaths of 3,000 people.

"George W. Bush did all that he could to prepare to rid the world of Islamic terrorism prior to 9/11; and because of 9/11, he finally got the political support to make it possible to begin the real job."
-April 11, 2004

He goes on to say that the only way to prevent something like 9/11 from happening was for 9/11 to happen. It's the same logic put into Marty McFly staging a mock sexual assault on his own mother in Back to the Future, so you know it's airtight. What's more, if Bush had prevented 9/11, his career would have ended. As Card puts it, "Successful disaster prevention always looks unnecessary, because after all, nothing bad happened." It's just like how we all look back at that wasteful asshole Kennedy when he put all those ships in front of Cuba for no good reason.

3 Gays Are Pretty Much the Worst

Orson Scott Card has a knack for writing mustache-twirling-villain dialogue. Check it out:

"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."
-February 1990

Problem is, that's not from a novel -- that's from a 1990 essay called "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality." Card now says that this quote has been taken out of context, and if you put the correct words around it, it magically shows him being "tolerant," because he only wants to punish gays some of the time.

But this was way back in 1990, when the Javan tiger walked the Earth and mullets were still considered acceptable. It was a different time. These days, Card has softened his position down to just saying that gay marriage is destroying society and "marks the end of democracy in America." (But if you disagree with his DEFCON-1 homophobia, he still wants you to see Ender's Game, because that's the tolerant thing to do!)

2 Fan Fiction Should Never Be Written (Except When He Writes It)

Orson Scott Card is far from the only writer who thinks no one should write fan fiction. After all, it must be hard seeing a character you created fucking a Teletubby or a Tetris block. He is, however, likely the only one who said ...

"The time to write fan fiction is 'never.' You will never do your best work in someone else's universe, because you're bound by their rules."
-July 19, 2004

... and then went on to write his own fan fiction stories based on Isaac Asimov, the works of Shakespeare, and the Bible.

So basically Orson Scott Card thinks fan fiction is a waste of time and should "never" be done, unless it's a book that's revered as absolute and the person adding to it is Orson Scott Card. Oh, but he totally keeps to the spirit of the originals -- like when he rewrote Hamlet, saying the king was inadequate as a ruler and evil because he was gay, and also molested Horatio and half the cast when they were young boys, causing them to turn gay. Did we mention that he really doesn't like gay people?

1 Obama Might Hypothetically Cause a Gangbanger Apocalypse

Because he thought his personal philosophy needed a little more racism and paranoia, Card recently sat down and wrote this, which more or less imagines a reality where Eazy-E conquered the White House during that one time he had lunch with George H.W. Bush:

"... Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people 'trying to escape' -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama."
-May 9, 2013

O-Card admits this is a hypothetical scenario that will never happen ... or will it? He ends his essay -- in which he seriously compares Obama to Hitler like 20 times -- by shuddering at how plausible it all sounds and noting that "anything can happen." Even Obama creating an army of "young out-of-work urban men" and sending it to silence the brave heroes of Fox News.

Once again, Card's defenders say his words are being taken out of context, but here's the thing: The guy has a tendency to write things that sound totally insane in any context. If you don't want your own words to be twisted back at you, Orson, maybe it's time to quit spouting loopy shit.