Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group, launched a campaign Thursday protesting the recent nomination of Focus on the Family founder and president James Dobson to the Radio Hall of Fame.
“It is outrageous and insulting that James Dobson would be nominated,” Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, said in a press release. While the Hall of Fame criteria for nominees does not address content or character, the LGBT advocacy group is demanding that Dobson’s name be removed from consideration because of homophobic and antigay comments made in articles, books, and on the air.
“I’m not surprised,” Besen said of Dobson’s nomination. Besen is, however, outraged: “[Dobson] is a very accomplished broadcaster, but I think it’s offset by the fact that he’s a very accomplished liar.” Truth Wins Out also maintains that Dobson has a history of distorting scientific research to defend his faith-based claims.
Several instances of misinformation occur in a guest article Dobson authored for Time magazine in December 2006. In “Two Mommies Is One Too Many,” Dobson commented on the announcement that Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter, was expecting a child with her partner, Heather Poe. “The majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father,” Dobson wrote.
Dobson went on to cite the parenting book of child psychologist Kyle Pruett, Fatherneed, as supporting Dobson’s claim. In a video clip posted on Truth Wins Out’s website, Pruett decried Dobson’s citation of his book. “I was disappointed, I was dismayed, and frankly, I was…mortified that my work would be in paragraphs of the conclusion that [Dobson] drew," Pruett said, adding, "There is no science that says those children [who are raised by gay or lesbian couples] are at risk.”
Dobson also referred to the work of Carol Gilligan, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, in the article. Dobson portrayed her as siding with his criticism of Mary Cheney and her partner. Following the publication of the article, in a direct letter to Dobson, Gilligan wrote, “Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with…. What you wrote was not truthful.”
While Dobson insists in his 2004 book Marriage Under Fire that “I have never said anything hateful about homosexuals on our broadcasts, and I do not condone violence or disrespect for anyone,” he predicted in a 2005 on-air broadcast that the legalization of same-sex marriage would lead to “group marriage,” “marriage between daddies and little girls,” and “marriage between a man and his donkey.” Dobson concluded in the same broadcast that same-sex marriage “will bring the destruction of this nation and many others.”
Dobson also lamented California’s recent legalization of same-sex marriage on the Focus on the Family website: “Chalk up another disastrous loss for the defenders of morality and the family.”
The National Radio Hall of Fame did not return calls for comment. (Hannah Clay Wareham, The Advocate)
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