Comic-Con News:  The decision by the gay rights group Geek Out to organize a boycott of Lionsgate’s film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game was made before Comic-Con, but the controversy was apparent in San Diego with protestors at Lionsgate’s Ender’s Game  exhibit just outside the convention’s grounds and during the show itself where the boycott was brought up at the Lionsgate panel where a disgruntled Harrison Ford, who stars in the film adaptation, appeared and talked about being drawn to the project by “the complexity of the moral issues” in the Ender’s Game saga.  Well judging from the discussion arising from Geek Out’s boycott, there are plenty of complex moral issues swirling around the presentation of the film as well.
 
Ironically it is not the theme of the Ender’s Game that Geek Out is objecting to.  If the movie is anything like the novel, it will be about the evils of bullying and the need for tolerance of those who are different.  Instead the folks at Geek Out are advocating a boycott of the film because Card, who wrote the original novel (and the screenplay) was a key member of the National Organization for Marriage and a major advocate against gay marriage, once even going so far as to suggest that advocates of traditional marriage would "have no choice but to change governments by whatever means necessary" if gay marriage was ruled Constitutional by the courts (see "Gay Organizations Protest DC's Hiring of Orson Scott Card").
 
After Geek Out first announced its boycott, Card responded with a plea for tolerance and stated that after the recent Supreme Court decision the gay marriage issue was now settled law (even suggesting that the courts would soon extend full marriage rights to gay partners in states that still do not recognize gay marriage).  For its part Lionsgate noted that the studio and many of the people involved in making the film had been longtime advocates of gay rights.
 
It is easy to understand Geek Out’s  negative reaction to Card’s statement.  Why should they extend tolerance to someone who once advocated so fiercely against the rights of gay people to marry?  And, as for the "settled law" nature of the right for gay people to marry, those advocating a boycott of Ender’s Game could easily point at the numerous continuing attempts to roll back laws on women’s reproductive rights, and the recent Supreme Court decision (announced at the same time as the landmark gay marriage rights decision) that rolls back provisions of the Voting Rights Act.  
 
Still, it is not as if the entire gay community and all of its supporters are lining up to back the boycott of Ender’s Game.  Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter of Milk, called the boycott "misguided" and said that "Boycotting a movie made by 99% LGBT equality folks in a LGBT equality industry is a waste of our collective energy."
 
As The New York Times pointed out in an editorial on Saturday, the purpose of a boycott is usually "to pressure companies or governments to end objectionable activities," but that the Ender’s Game boycott is more about punishing Card and "is closer to blacklisting" than to a targeted civil rights-promoting bit of activism.  And there is the problem of collateral damage; if the Ender’s Game movie fails there are plenty of others aside from Orson Scott Card who could potentially be hurt by the action.