NEW YORK, NY — Comic book publisher DC Comics is the target of strong criticism from LGBT rights activists and civil libertarians for its decision to hire for its new “Adventures of Superman” digital imprint an award-winning writer who is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage.
DC is under fire for commissioning North Carolina-based writer Orson Scott Card to pen a two-part story arc which will launch its new “Adventures of Superman” anthology series. Card—best known for his 1985 science fiction novel “Ender’s Game”—is an outspoken critic of LGBT rights and marriage equality.
In 1990, he wrote that laws which ban homosexual behavior should “remain on the books” in order 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.”
In a 2004 essay, “Homosexual ‘Marriage’ and Civilization,” Card, who has written for competitor Marvel Comics, described “The dark secret of homosexual society—the one that dares not speak its name—is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.”
In that same tract, Card darkly predicted that with the acceptance of marriage equality, “politically correct barbarians will have complete victory over the family—and, lacking the strong family structure on which civilization depends, our civilization will collapse or fade away.”
In 2009, Card was elected to the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which opposes marriage equality legislation across the country. Last year, during the battle over North Carolina’s Amendment One, the voter-approved constitutional amendment which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, Card authored an editorial titled “What Right Is Really at Stake?,” in which he argued that marriage equality would give “the [political] left the power to force anti-religious values on our children.”
In that opinion piece, he likewise condemned the idea of same-sex family units. “Gay people still have choices,” Card wrote. “A reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles.”
The news of DC’s hiring of Card “By hiring Orson Scott Card despite his anti-gay efforts you are giving him a new platform and supporting his hate,” it reads.
Openly gay comic book artist and writer Phil Jimenez tweeted his opposition to the hiring. “I’m encouraging people not to buy his work because when they do they actively support a foully bigoted man who uses his power and influence to affect public policy,” wrote Jimenez.
Despite its decision to hire Card for the “Adventures” anthology, DC has previously taken a decidely progressive stand on the issue of marriage equality with its July 2012 issue of “Earth 2,” which introduced a re-launched classic DC hero, Alan Scott, the Green Lantern, as an openly gay man. That series, along with DC’s “Batwoman” line, is nominated for a 2013 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Award.
And rival Marvel Comics—for which the accused-homophobe Card has penned such titles as the “Amazing Ironman,” featured the June 2012 same-sex marriage (in title “Astonishing X-Men”) of the superhero Northstar—who came out as gay in 1992, the first major comic book character to so—to his longtime partner, Kyle Jinadu.
