This seems kind of like responding to a post about a specific bit of Orson Scott Card's writing advice with a blistering salvo about Card's homophobia and Islam

This seems kind of like responding to a post about a specific bit of Orson Scott Card's writing advice with a blistering salvo about Card's homophobia and Islamophobia: they're real things deserving of criticism/debate, but they don't actually say much about his writing advice. An asshole with good writing advice is still an asshole, but it's also still good writing advice. ESR is in many respects a fruitcake,† but that doesn't, in and of itself, make his observations about the Unix-Haters' Handbook unworthy of bringing up in a discussion about the Unix-Haters' Handbook. †Whether this crack is unfair to ESR or unfair to fruitcakes is left as an exercise for the reader.