Editorial Of The Day

The New York Times is accusing Geeks Out of blacklisting Orson Card Scott.

This isn’t about stopping the dissemination of antigay sentiments; it’s about isolating Mr. Card and shaming his business partners, thus cutting into their profits. If Mr. Card belongs in quarantine, who’s next? His views were fairly mainstream when the Sunstone article appeared and, unfortunately, are not unusual today.

Just 10 years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his inflammatory Lawrence v. Texas dissent that Americans have every right to enforce “the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct” in order to protect themselves “from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”

On a practical level, the Geeks Out project seems misguided. These things have a way of backfiring, as when former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas promoted Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day to counter the Chick-fil-A boycott. Attending a goofy popcorn movie could become a way to express disapproval of gays and lesbians — hardly a happy ending.

Read the full editorial.