Apparently, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Focus on the Family Action is the most powerful Religious Right figure in politics at the moment. He is not a theologian. He holds a doctorate in child development from U.S.C. and is a licensed psychologist in California. He first came to national prominance in 1972 with a book that was very popular with fundamentalists, Dare to Discipline, which advocated "spanking," or at least didn’t rule it out. Like much of what he’s said since then, his book made some sense. How he slid from child psychologist [at 36] to Religious Right Pundit [at 70] isn’t clear to me. Apparently, he founded Focus on the Family not long after publishing that first book [he’s written 35 more since then]. Where the fundamentalist part came from isn’t clear, maybe it was always there. The gist of his writing has been within a Christian framework, and he is probably one of the forces that brought the term "family values" into prominance. He believes strongly in a traditional patriarchial family, and blames most problems on some breakdown in this structure.
What’s difficult about him is that he gives reasonably decent advice at times. On the other hand, he gives as if it comes from some scientific position, when it is, in fact, simply his opinion. He is specifically obsessed with homosexuality, and has strong views on the subject. Unlike many of his counterparts, he does not make the absurd claim that homosexuality is a choice. So, even though he recognizes its biological basis, he seems taken with "biology" plus "other factors." In his book, Bringing up Boys, he implies that it is domineering mothers and weak fathers that apparently account for the "other factors." He suggests that fathers and sons should shower together and do other man/boy things to impart "masculinity" to their sons. He sounds enough like a psychologist to make his advice seem sound. I know of absolutely no child developmental studies that support what he says. As a psychoanalyst, I never read anything or saw any patient that supported his ideas. They’re just his opinion. But he has increasingly become a major force in the Religious Right, opposed to abortion, opposed to gay marriage, attacking the "runaway judges" in the courts, proponent of "family values," etc.
If you read his web site, he’s careful to avoid the nutty things many of his colleagues claim. But his advice, his pronouncements, are straight from the hip. Maybe he really believes them. I don’t question that. But they are just that – his beliefs. He certainly is not immune to conspiracy theories – "While words like ‘diversity’ and ‘unity’ sound harmless — even noble — enough, the reality is they are often used by gay activists as cover for teaching children that homosexuality is the moral and biological equivalent to heterosexuality." He seems to think that "gay activists" are trying to turn people into homosexuals, or recruit people into homosexuality. He apparently thinks it is important to keep homosexuals in the "queer" status. Somehow the logic is that granting homosexuality a legitimate existence or allowing Gay Marriage will cause the collapse of Western Civilization as we know it. He gives eleven reasons for this conclusion. It’s worth reading what he says to get the flavor of how he sounds sort of like a psychologist, but isn’t! The holes in his logic are transparent on close reading.
When it’s all said and done, he’s just another apocalyptic crackpot like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. He’s probably more dangerous because he’s not so obviously a charlatan. Many of the things he says are perfectly sensible – for example, the need for children to have limits and discipline from their parents, or the desirability of children having parental role models. But then he gets into made-up pseudo-freudian malarkey like boys taking showers with dad to see his big penis so they’ll want to grow up with a big penis too, and that will somehow protect the boy from homosexuality. Such laughable rubbish is hardly grounded in any reasonable theory or set of observations.
But this man is a huge force in our society right now. He’s the one Bush is appealing to with this Gay Marriage Ammendment. He apparently has the ear of the Right Wing Christian voters. He’s the one who tells them on his radio show that it’s a sin if they don’t vote [for you know who, and you know what].
I suppose there have always been people like James Dobson, strong forceful self-promoting advice-givers who fill a void for people struggling with the real problems of living. Nowdays, we call them pop-psychologists. But the combination of such a man with the Religious Right, the Neoconservatives from the American Enterprise Institute and P.N.A.C., the traditional conservative Republican business community, all coordinated by the sleazy methodology of the Bush/Rove team have produced an unholy alliance that is more toxic than the sum of its parts – more toxic than anything we’ve ever known. Dobson may have started with the best of motives. He may still have the best of motives. But he has become an important part of what is wrongest about the world. – bigotry, plain and simple…
It is truly unclear when did he unfortunately turn to extreme Christian right. Maybe ageing did its part in making him so conservative. I find that his spiritual input wasn’t that bad.