Kardwill: And, well, Chick is (err... was) a private bogeyman for the TTRPG community. Part of the big anti-D&D craze a few years ago, which let to much bad blood. For some players, book burning/pastor or family interventions/gaming circle forcibly closed were real life stuff and not simply silly comic books from a madman.
So for many, it's a personal feud and not simply a disagreement.
zeogold: This may have been an opinion of his, but how does that make him responsible? As you said, there were family interventions, book burnings, etc., so....isn't that the fault of the people doing it? From what I can tell, Chick did nothing but parrot opinions which were already there, unless you're saying people followed his every comic and revered him like the head of a cult or something.
Well, when somebody run in the streets screaming "paint all dogs red!", and the morning after you see old Rex has been colored a fresh shade of crimson by your neighbor's kids, well, you know it's the kid's fault, but you kinda think the nutter had his share of responsibility.
There was a very active smear campaign against games at the time, "journalists" jumped ont the bandwagon, and parents who heard about it panicked and tried to "protect" their kids, leading to incidents that would not have happened without the anti-D&D propagandists.
Now, was Chick actually part of the problem, or did he simply jump on the bandwagon like everyone else? Difficult to say. His works were so over-the-top that I have trouble believing anybody might have taken him seriously, but he makes a convenient bogeyman, as it's harder to resent people like Pat Pulling (who was probably the worst offender, but her crusade was fueled by a personal tragedy, so you cannot help but sympathise even if she was very, very wrong) or a faceless group like "the braindead media looking for the next juicy scandal"
I am probably not entirely rational in my dislike for him (but, hey, nobody is entirely rational about anything), but the guy thought that I am personally a dangerous lunatic (as a RPG gamemaster), and I returned the favor.