The sole news outlet that reported on the interview, according to a Google News Search, was The Rocky Mountain News. The paper reported mostly on the Ted Haggard story, but pulled a few remarkable quotes from the interview, notably one in which Dobson claims that liberals have no values and do not know the difference between right and wrong: Those again on the liberal end of the spectrum are those who have no value system, or at least they say there is no moral and immoral. There's no right or wrong. . . . But when a religious leader, or especially an evangelical, falls, guess who is the most judgmental of him and calling him a hypocrite? . . . Those that said there is no right and wrong in the first place. The truth of the matter is there is right and wrong. And we all within our midst have failures, and they do occur." OK, liberals, what do you have to day about that? Meanwhile, Dobson says that Christian counseling could cure disgraced evangelist Ted Haggard of his homosexuality in three to five years.
KING: Well, how could a gay person preach against gays? How could you do that? Here is Dobson explaining his admittedly controversial theory of homosexuality:
KING: We discussed this before in the past, but not recently: Do you still believe that being gay is a choice rather than a given? Dobson later indulged in some well debunked revisionist history. Dobson claims that there is no such thing as separation of church and state, while the historical record clearly shows that while it is true that the phrase separation of church and state is not found in the constitution or the first Amendment, the phrase was in wide use among leading thinkers at the time, and that Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists was an effort by Jefferson to explain his understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment. That is part of the reason why the Supreme Court borrowed the phrase to in explaining what it meant in interpreting the first amendment, and why it has become a standard part of our understanding of the meaning of the constitution.
KING: But we have a separation of church and state. And finally, it is worth noting that the ever-militant Dobson is more than a little politically tone deaf. The Terry Schiavo episode was a turning point for many Americans' understanding of how extreme and how powerful the religious right had become in the GOP, and in the government.
KING: On reflection though, were you politically wrong on Schiavo? As of this writing, there is no significant news or blog coverage of the matters discussed in this post. As far as I can tell, no liberal religious or political leaders or liberal pundits have weighed in on the latest outrages from Dobson. Much has been made in recent years of how John Kerry did not respond to the Swift Boat Veterans attack on his character and military service record. But I daresay that the silence in response to Dobson epitomizes what has been going on in America for a generation: a failure to seriously engage the religious right.
Dobson: Liberals Have No Values | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden)
Dobson: Liberals Have No Values | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden)
|
BlogsBartholomew's Notes On ReligionChip BerletMax BlumenthalThe Panda's ThumbFrederick Clarkson Chuck Currie DefCon father Jake Stops The World John Gorenfeld Religion Clause Chris Mooney Religious Right Watch The Revealer Jesus Politics Majority Report Radio Blog Mainstream Baptist Orcinus Dispatches from the Culture Wars Ex-Gay Watch The Wall of Separation Blog From The Capital:a blog on religious liberty issues and the separation of church and stateOrganizationsAmerican Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of ExpressionACLUAnti-Defamation LeagueAmerican Library AssociationChristian Alliance for ProgressCitizens ProjectDefCon: Campaign to Defend The ConstitutionFaithful America People For the American wayInstitute For Democracy StudiesInterfaith AllianceJews On First: Defending the First AmendmentAmerican Fundamentalists Americans United for Separation of Church and StateBaptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty The Clergy and laity Network Political Research Associates Theocracy Watch Media Matters for AmericaMilitary Religious Freedom FoundationMontana Human Rights NetworkNational Center For Science EducationReligious Coalition for Reproductive ChoiceThe RevealerSouthern Poverty Law CenterTexas Freedom NetworkCrossLeft: Organizing the Christian LeftTheocracy WatchTruth Wins Out" |
|||||||||||||