DOMA and Prop 8. Both History.

[kandrathe]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to separate a persons art, from the artist.

If you look in the dictionary* under "Author Fillibuster," you find Ayn Rand. Both of her major novels end with stupendously long lectures from the heroic, Objectivist main character, telling us how wonderful self-interest is. She is very much instantiating her social fantasies in the form of novels. (This is not inherently bad, but it is true.) She didn't even manage to convincingly separate herself from her characters, let alone her ideas from those expressed in her novels. There might be some authors where this is a reasonable argument. Ayn Rand is not one of them. The philosophy she held, the group she founded, and the ideas expressed in her novels all follow exactly the same Objectivist doctrine.

Granted more in Atlas, and a lesser extent in The Fountainhead -- much of her work was less so -- but she seemed to be going for more of an Orwellian thing. Still, excepting John Galt's endless soliloquy, and some other notables like Francisco's speech on money, much of the plot doesn't sermonize to that extent. { But, yes, she needed more *editor* }. The novel mainly sets up some clear examples of protagonists and antagonists in Dagny's cohorts, including her pretty detestable brother. I can still glean the artist, even in Atlas, from the art. I never quite understood the need to spend so much of the novel chasing down that engine, except for giving a reason for her and Hank to "fall in love". The anti-Hobbsian and triple confused romance is the main "story", but at least in Atlas -- Ayn does insert herself directly into the novel, but not as Dagny -- as the striking Fishwife at Atlantis who is a writer/philosopher.