I have to think Card's work also resonated with another demographic of kids who felt set apart from the crowd: Gay teenagers. Which makes Card's antigay screed, published in the Mormon Times, all the more hurtful. Card, a practicing Mormon, says he's against gay marriage. But he's really against gays, period — and thinks we should overturn the U.S. government to put his views into practice.

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman. This is a permanent fact of nature.

If Card really meant "the same as," I'd actually find that statement hard to disagree with; there are aspects of gay relationships which differ from straight ones. But what Card really means is that gay relationships are not as good as straight ones — and that's just hateful.

AfterElton.com, in an editorial, deftly shreds Card's argument to pieces. It mostly makes me feel sad to see such a brilliant imaginer of worlds incapable of empathy on such a basic issue.

So what does this mean for Ender's Game, which Marvel is now turning into a comic-book series, after which a big Hollywood movie seems inevitable? It is a surpassingly fine work. Though the hero is schooled for warfare, he ultimately learns empathy for those who are different. Perhaps Card should read it himself.