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Dobson Lists Divorce Risk Factors, Doesn't Mention Gay Marriage
By Bruce Wilson Thu May 18, 2006 at 09:05:15 AM EST printable version print story
James Dobson, head of the powerful Christian evangelical outreach group, nonprofit 501c(3) Focus on The Family, has built a career and empire based on his self assigned role as defender of "the family" and as an advisor on family, marriage, and child rearing.

Dobson has also made dire claims about the alleged threat of same sex marriage and feels so strongly that he advocates the passage of a Federal Marriage Amendment against same sex marriage and has created a lobbying group ( Focus On The family Action ) to fight against same sex marriage. But Mr. Dobson, in a Wednesday Indiana newspaper advice column, failed to include the alleged threat of "gay marriage" in a list of divorce risk factors.


Here are Dobson's claims about the threat of "gay marriage":

Dr. Dobson's Newsletter: April, 2004
In Defending Marriage Take the Offensive !

Dear Friends:

I write to you today with a profound sense of concern and apprehension for the welfare of the family, and indeed, for the future of our nation. I do not recall a time since the beginnings of Focus on the Family, 27 years ago, when the institution of marriage faced such peril, or when the forces arrayed against it were more formidable or determined. Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself. This is a time for concerted prayer, divine wisdom and greater courage than we have ever been called upon to exercise.

For more than 40 years, the homosexual activist movement has sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family

"Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It  [ same-sex marriage ] will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." - James Dobson, Focus on the Family, October 2004 speaking at a rally for OK GOP Senate candidate Tom Coburn

Here are the divorce-risk factors Dr. Jmaes Dobson lists, in an advice column that ran May 17, 2006, in the "Carrol County Comet" of Delphi, Indiana, in response to the question "Would you identify some of the major "marriage killers" that are most responsible for the high divorce rate that plagues today's families?" :


  1. OVERCOMMITMENT AND PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION

  2. EXCESSIVE CREDIT AND CONFLICT OVER HOW MONEY WILL BE SPENT.

  3. SELFISHNESS

  4. UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS WITH IN-LAWS

  5. UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

  6. SPACE INVADERS [ Jealousy and poor self concept ]

  7. SEXUAL FRUSTRATION AND ITS PARTNER, THE GREENER GRASS OF INFIDELITY

  8. BUSINESS COLLAPSE

  9. BUSINESS SUCCESS

  10. GETTING MARRIED TOO YOUNG

  11. ALCOHOL AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE

  12. PORNOGRAPHY, GAMBLING AND OTHER ADDICTIONS

Conspicuously absent from Dobson's divorce-risk list was the alleged threat of "gay marriage".




Display:
In his book Marriage Under Fire, Dobson lists 10 reasons against gay marriage, and he never mentions divorce.  One of his arguments is about economics- that gay marriage will drive up health care costs and premiums for everyone because all kinds of families will be eligible for health insurance.   He also talks about how gay marriage will destroy social security.  These are clearly about raising people's economic anxieties and keeping him in line with the Republican agenda.  In terms of divorce, he never says gay marriage causes divorce, but he uses the same ridiculous argument that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, and he implies that this will also mean more divorces.

by Tanya Erzen on Fri May 19, 2006 at 09:10:22 AM EST
But, given the extreme claims he's made I'd say the burden is on him to provide some sort of proof that gay marriage has a negative effect on traditional families......

Unless he's talking about gay marriage as an alleged threat on a geological time scale or as a threat to the concept of marriage :  both of those claims seem rather silly to me.

by Bruce Wilson on Fri May 19, 2006 at 12:20:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]



In an excerpt I read on IntheseTimes, Ms. Goldberg made such good sense that I am invigorated with a promise of something better in this unhappy country.  Dobson would never have the grotesque amount of power he has presently if we'd stop beating ourselves up as liberals, and refuse to allow a non-majority to set the agenda.  We are stuck with this Christian nationalism only for as long as we allow it to prevail.

by TomChicago on Fri May 19, 2006 at 07:12:09 AM EST
Here's the link to Teri Gross' "Fresh Air" interview of Michelle Goldberg on her new book

by Bruce Wilson on Fri May 19, 2006 at 07:41:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]


Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, October 26, 1939
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945)


by Pauljaxon on Thu May 18, 2006 at 09:37:53 AM EST
But ceaseless repetition can cause many to accept lies as truth.

by Bruce Wilson on Thu May 18, 2006 at 09:54:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I should have elaborated on my choice of the quote above.  The far-right has lied and lied and lied about gay marriage (and numerous other things) to their congregations and constituents for so long, that they are swallowing it all as truth.  I certainly wish they would think for themselves!

In my humble opinion,

Paul

by Pauljaxon on Thu May 18, 2006 at 11:16:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]


And it's a lesson we forget at our grave peril.  The OSS, in its psychological profile of Adolf Hitler, noted almost identical tactics used by Hitler and by dominionists today (and by coercive groups in general):
(26) He is a master of the art of propaganda. Ludecke writes:

    "He has a matchless instinct for taking advantage of every breeze to raise a political whirlwind. No official scandal was so petty that he could not magnify it into high treason; he could ferret out the most deviously [unreadable] corruption in high places and plaster the town with the bad news." (159)

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.



by dogemperor on Thu May 18, 2006 at 08:42:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I've come before to the Nizkor Project : it's good to remember the territory.

by Bruce Wilson on Thu May 18, 2006 at 10:53:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]





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