[ST] vericon guest announcement

[Buzz Harris]

--- "Rick Z. Kovalcik" <rk at mit.edu> wrote:
> --- David D'Antonio <dda at dantonio.net> wrote:
> > Or do cons take the attitude that they are
> > honouring his SF  
> > work rather than his non-SF opinions/beliefs?
> > 
> > DDA
> 
> I believe that was pretty much the argument Boskone
> used.  
> 
> -RKOV
> Rick Kovalcik

Yes, I heard that argument from Boskone concomm people
at the time (and today as well, over in the
Vericon_fans lj page).  It is neither a persuasive nor
a reassuring position.

When you invite someone to an event as your honored
guest, you get the whole person, with all of the good
and bad baggage attached.  It may be that the
issuer(s) of the invitation do not consider the bad
baggage to be important.  That does not, though,
magically make it go away.  In this sense, it is a
rather naive argument.

That position can also say "I did not know about it,"
which may certainly be true.  At that point the issue
becomes, how do you respond?  If the response is, as
it was from a number of Boskone folks, "Well, we did
not know about that, but now that we do we're telling
you that we're only inviting him because we like his
SF writing," that has gone beyond naivete.  That
translates to "OK, you educated us.  Thanks.  Now we
are telling you that we do not care."  Gee, thanks.  

Withdrawing the invitation would have been nice.  Even
"Yikes, we did not know.  We're very sorry about that,
but we've already issued the invitation and do not
feel able to withdraw it," would have been better as
well.  I would not have liked the answer, but it would
have been better than "It does not matter to us."

And that is indeed the message that came from Boskone
when they invited Card.  "Yes, we know or we know now,
and we do not care."  I was quite surprised that they
were surprised when GSFS responded to that answer by
protesting Card's presence as GOH with an open letter
at the con.

It may not matter to YOU, but it matters a great deal
to other people in the fannish community.  Card is not
just personally anti-gay.  That I could give a pass
to.   There are other writers who are as well.  He has
gone out of his way to publicly insult us, demean us
and our families, and to advocate for our legal and
political persecution *in writing*.

As I said, it is neither a persuasive nor a reassuring
argument.  It is, in fact, an insulting one.

Buzz



       
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