There's something about the hobby that has long attracted people who are imperfect. I'm sure it's like that with other hobbies too, but in particular--in the 70s and 80s--D&D was not popular like it is today. People in the hobby were commonly social misfits, people would make mistakes, and many still do, whether they are from that era or not.
While I have found myself to be privy to some of the controversy mentioned in the original post around Ernie, and while I am not surprised that many have labeled him all sorts of offensive epithets even at the news of his death, it's been interesting for me personally to see how, while Ernie was imperfect, he was never someone who rejected anyone from his games, which he ran a ridiculous amount.
There have been times that controversy occurred, most notably around the Dungeon Hobby Shop, the ridiculously crazy things we all read about Justin Lanasa, Star Frontiers, etc., but one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Ernie never wanted to harm a fly. He certainly seemed to have ideas about Dungeons and Dragons, and he certainly had a way of saying things that were like gasoline on fire when it comes to many of his critics--to see the reaction news of his death has brought has been at once beautiful and at times distressing--but I look at Ernie and I see someone who was imperfect but loved gamers and loved the game. And he was just like so many other nerds in our hobby.
So we live in a time. And we live in a time where there are hypercritical people who seem to thrive on conflict and obsessively call out others on their perceived failures, and then there are those of us who take it a step further and denigrate the dead, including Ernie and his father, who are not here to defend themselves.
None of us are perfect. All of us make mistakes. But Ernie was never someone who hated anybody. Ernie was not sophisticated enough to understand Justin Lanasa; he just wanted The Dungeon Hobby Shop to succeed for himself and his friends (like Jeff), and he wanted to run his game. But he never hated anyone. He didn't get the hyper-Left, but I'd say Ernie was far more Left than he was conservative, by far, and there are endless examples of him welcoming all to his table and running games for everyone in the hopes they'd have a good time.
He was great, he was really flawed, he was like all of us.
