Card’s claim to fame is the Ender Saga, which I really hope you’ve all read. If not, let me know. I’ll freaking buy you a copy of Ender’s Game myself.

He has always been vocal about queers. In fact, his article he wrote about people calling themselves both gay and Mormon has been in my “Interesting prose” bookmark folder for a few years now, and I think it pretty much sums what he feels. He’s not homophobic in the sense that he’d go out and kill off some butt munchers, and I doubt he’d ever even nudge someone in that direction to do that. He just doesn’t like gay people interfering with his religion, and that’s totally acceptable. Most religions have conservative “rules” you have to stick to, beliefs you must hold, and that applies especially the Latter-Day Saints. If you’re gay you’re just not invited.

In the same way that if I’m asked to an invite-only party, and you’re not, you can’t go. It’s not that the hosts hate you, it’s just that they don’t really want you there. And why should they? It’s their event. Their religion.

Same goes for marriage really. It’s a Christian thing. What right do the government have to start meddling in it? The church and state should be separate; that’s usually said to stop religion messing with laws, but it’s also true to stop law messing with religion.

I’m not sure on Card’s views on civil partnerships – different but equal. Assuming neither partner in a civil partnership wanted children (for the sake of this paragraph) I think he’d be okay with it. After all, then it’d just be a legal thing and Judges wouldn’t be fucking up his religion in ways it never wanted to be, in ways that specifically are outlawed in their rules.

Up until this point I agree with all of the above; religion should sit in one corner, and politics should sit in another, and their paths should never meet. However, I disagree with Card – not angrily, because I understand why he disagrees with me – as soon as children step into the picture.

I don’t see why gay people can’t have children. I’m pretty sure that having two same sex parents doesn’t mess up a child in any way. The heterosexual desires are inbuilt in heterosexual children, and the same for gay children. It really isn’t a choice, I’m not arguing that here, and I’d love to as I find the article Card mentions he’s going to write “soon” (back last year, so I guess it’s around somewhere). It not being a choice is what I’m basing my opinion on concerning gay people having children. If it turns out that it affects the child in anyway I’ll seriously reconsider my stance on this. I wish I could go out and look at data for how gay parented kids turn out, but I’m guessing that they’re all written by extremists, on both sides so I won’t look. But this isn’t the place for that argument (and I will delete any comment bringing that argument up, email me if you really want to).

I also disagree with him that it’s wrong to allow children to see that there can be happy homosexual relationships, and that they can be just as successful (and as catastrophically dismal) as heterosexual couplings. As a (playing-around-with-the-ideas-of) Objectivist, I’d say that every human has equal rights, and the law should promote those individuals however it can to aid their safety. Morality on the other hand should be controlled by organisations, in this argument religions, and not the government.

PS. Although I’ve only read Ender’s Game so far (just waiting till I can afford Speaker) I’m pretty sure that Card doesn’t put much about gays in his books. There’s no reason not to buy his books. Whilst boycotting is typically a good way to get a business to change their ways, refusing to buy his books isn’t going to stop him believing in what he believes in, and so you’re just missing out on some of the best writing ever. I have amazing small attention span, and can happily sit through reading his massively long articles despite him saying stuff I don’t believe in.

It tells the story of Bella Swan moving from sunny Phoenix to mouldy Forks. She looks on the move with dispassion, not being able to adjust to the drop in temperature she’s so used to in the desert, but that quickly changes as Edward Cullen moves onto the scene. This could have been an ordinary boy-meets-girl love story, but as it turns out it’s not, as Bella discovers Edward’s a vampire.

If anyone can tell me why this has any relevance to the book, please comment.

I’ll be honest: I only bothered picking this book up because I was waiting for my delayed train one day before Christmas and I felt like helping WH Smith shift one of the hundred copies of the book they had lying around. I also had to see why my friend, Nicola, hated this book so fiercely. Maybe she’s just over reacting, I thought as I thumbed noncommittally through the pages, Nik has high standards after all. But no, Stephenie Meyer really does come out with some incredibly stupid things, and should at the very least fire her copy-proofer.

To be completely honest, the first… twelve chapters were completely useless to the story. They could have easily been done in maybe two or three chapters with exactly the same sentiment. Because of how boring I was finding the first half of the book it actually took me a while to get through it. The tedious repetition of her going to school, coming home, making some fish based food, a quick phone call to Jess (who seemed to bond with Bella very well, despite them not actually seeming to have much in common), before heading off to bed seemed to go on for pages and pages, which nothing at all happening.

Maybe that’s standard practice for “love” stories, I just don’t see why 200 pages had to be taken up by it before anything remotely interesting happens.

Fortunately though, by the thirteenth chapter – definitely my favourite – things do start to get better. So much better in fact that I read the rest of the book in a day, compared with the two months it took me to read the first half.

Calling this a love story, or a romance novel, annoys me though. These people clearly aren’t in love. We’re told throughout the story that a vampire trait is how beautiful they look to their prey, mesmerizing so. All Bella is experiencing is an attraction specifically designed to make her feel this way, to make her lured to him, so he can eat her. There’s nothing romantic about that. He only feels that way because for the first time in a hundred years he can’t read someone’s thoughts. He’s shielded from her ugly thoughts that he hears from every other human which probably turn him off from them. The only actually thing drawing him to her is her smell, another thing designed to make him eat her!

In sum? Skip the book. Watch the movie (it doesn’t have two hundred pages of high school drama).

I’m kinda ill; I woke up at about nine o’clock this morning, only be to really sick. There was nothing in my stomach except bile apparently, so that’s all I threw up. Most disgusting taste ever. Even burns a little too. That happened every hour or so until five o’clock when I finally thought I could brave going downstairs.

I had planned on going to Asda today, to get meat-alternatives and other stuff I need, but obviously that didn’t happen. I’ll get them tomorrow I hope.

I suppose one good thing I’m happy about is finishing Blood Beast (Darren Shan). Though, it ended in a cliff hanger, so it’s also kinda a downer that the book finished.