Send a missionary

I've written a few times about the boycott of the movie Ender's Game because of the nasty anti-gay comments of Orson Scott Card, the book's author and movie's producer. Though not speaking specifically about Card, Brian Dickerson has an editorial in Sunday's Free Press about boycotts. Dickerson was prompted to write because Stevie Wonder declared he would no longer perform in states with stand-your-ground laws.

Dickerson says boycotts are not new. Religious communities have used shunning for many generations.

His objection to boycotts has two parts. The first is effectiveness -- it is rare for the targeted group to actually change their behavior. Though wasn't there something about disinvesting in apartheid South Africa?

The second is with boycotts, easier to organize than ever before, we extend the fault lines in society -- red and blue TV, red and blue churches, red and blue music. "The less we rub elbows with those with whom we disagree politically, the less we are at risk at discovering that we have anything in common with them."

Want to change their opinion? Engage with your opponents. Or, as Dickerson says it, send a missionary.

He makes sense.

Should those behind the Stop Ender's Game campaign instead form a delegation to meet Mr. Card? Will he agree to such a meeting? If that meeting ever happened, would it change his mind? Would the visit make any more difference than the boycott? I'm still not going to see the movie.