Now this happens...

The summer of 2001 I was vacationing in Myrtle Beach and I picked up a `beach book` to read from the local Wal-Mart. It was by a sci-fi author I'd heard of, but I'd never read anything of his. The book was called `Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus'.

Well, the book was great, and my obsessive self wanted more. I looked up the author's list of books and the most recommended by far was a book called 'Ender's Game'. I ran to the bookstore, bought it, read it in one sitting, and the rest is history.

It immediately shot up to the top of my list of favorite books. Not only was it my new Favorite Book Ever, but I became insufferable about it. I made my mom, my brother and my daughter read it. My brother agreed with me. Mom and daughter thought it was very good. I made Dwayne read it too, and my friend Mark from work. Both of these guys are of the 'haven't read a book since high school' variety, and they both loved it!

I started giving the book away as Christmas presents...and then I started buying extra copies, so that I could say, "Have you read Ender's Game? No? Oh, well then here's a copy."...

And it has umpteen sequels, those are all wonderful, too.

So finally, the movie they've been talking about making for YEARS is coming out, and I'm soooo excited. But wait...there's a controversy...what's that...

It turns out that the author of all my favorite books ever is a raging homophobe. Not only that,  but the kind of raging homophobe who says things like, he'll destroy and bring down any government that supports gay marriage.

(sigh) His name is Orson Scott Card. He has every right to think this way...it doesn't affect the books. It will, however, cause certain people not to read his books, and that makes me sad.

The saddest thing is that the first sequel to 'Ender's Game', 'Speaker for the Dead', is a book I've talked about before in this journal.  It's a beautifully written book, and is the start of its own trilogy, about acceptance and peace between all the living things in the universe.

It's hard to believe that the author could write something so beautiful about the concept of acceptance between all living things, yet he couldn't include gays in with them.