While it has been a certainty for a while that I would never become a member of the SFWA, due to entirely ignoring the traditional publishing method, today I decided I won’t even be buying books by authors who are members.
That’s a pretty tall list, I imagine. But when the organization resorts to authoritarian bullshit like this, I don’t want to even give a penny to a person who supports them with dues.
I get booting out Vox, even if I don’t agree with it. It’s their club, and if they want to be a bunch of mentally stunted hyenas, that is their decision and I believe in the concept of freedom of association. Even when I find their methods and reasoning lacking. The reasoning here being, “He said things that we didn’t like.” But at least kicking him out was just that — choosing to only associate with people they can be tolerant toward.
But suppressing their own reasoning? That’s both bold and insane. “We don’t want you in our group, and also, we don’t want you telling people why not!” Cowards. Cowards hiding behind copyright law, to protect their own selfish, childish, and quite frankly weak motives. Fortunately, they don’t own Vox’s response to their precious copyrighted document, and that is still available. For now, anyway.
I suppose next they’ll be telling people not to discuss it at all, and trying to sue non-members for saying hurtful things about them?
Cowards.