You may have heard of the decision by DC to hire Orson Scott Card as a writer for their "Adventures of Superman" series, which was protested by gay rights activists because of his public statements against gay marriage and board membership at the National Organization for Marriage. These activists started a petition to get DC to drop Card as a writer, a petition which seems to have achieved its goal.
When I posted the last link, it triggered a lengthy discussion on my Google+ stream. Was the drive to drop Card in the name of fighting intolerance itself an act of intolerance?
First, let us examine the legal question - whether the decision to drop Card was a case of workplace discrimination. Technically, this does not seem to be the case - the artist dropped out after the unfavorable media attention, and while DC claims that they will hire a new artist... eventually, they are probably not in a great hurry to do so and will likely find some pretense for dropping the project sooner or later - compensating Card as per their contract if necessary. DC has a stable of very good lawyers, so actual workplace discrimination will probably not be proven, though it's understandable that this leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many people worried about workplace discrimination in general.
That leaves the moral question: Is it morally right to be intolerant to those with intolerant views? Or should their publicly professed views, no matter how obnoxious, be tolerated in the name of tolerance?
Speaking from a German perspective, Germany once enshrined tolerance of even intolerance in its constitution - that is, the constitution of the Weimar Republic. And while this was far from the only reason for its ignoble end, its constitution made it hard for the government authority for those who wanted to tear the Weimar democracy down. After WWII, the authors of the new German constitution tried to learn from the mistakes of the past - and thus, Article 18 of the German constitution states:
"Whoever abuses the freedom of expression, in particular the freedom of the press (paragraph (1) of Article 5), the freedom of teaching (paragraph (3) of Article 5), the freedom of assembly (Article 8), the freedom of association (Article 9), the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications (Article 10), the rights of property (Article 14), or the right of asylum (Article 16a) in order to combat the free democratic basic order shall forfeit these basic rights. This forfeiture and its extent shall be declared by the Federal Constitutional Court."
This paragraph has been used in the past to outlaw extremist groups (both right wing and left wing) of all kinds because they did advocate the overthrow of the free democratic order. But would Orson Scott Card qualify as such an advocate? Well, he once wrote this:
"Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary."
[...]
"How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn."
If this attitude is representative of the National Organization for Marriage - that any means are permissible to change the government to something more to their liking - then in Germany it would certainly be sufficient grounds to keep them under watch, not as an enemy of the government, but as an enemy of democracy itself.
Of course, the USA is not Germany. They haven't had a trauma similar to the Third Reich where all democratic principles were abandoned, and I hope they will never have to. And so far, despite some dark times in their history, it seems to work out.
But that doesn't mean citizens should look away when others promote intolerance. Discrimination against gays still runs strong in many areas, and groups like Orson Scott Card's National Organization for Marriage do their best to maintain that state of discrimination. His homophobic stance is not just his private, personal views - he uses his fame and influence to promote them in a prominent manner.
Thus, I really cannot find any moral problem with the petition to get DC to drop him as a writer.
