If I am not engaged in my favorite Sunday afternoon activity, napping, I like to find out what the blogsphere is saying about my favorite evil doer, James Dobson. Today we have a mixed lot.
Noel Black has figured out a way to bleed off funds from Focus on the Family by ordering tons of free anti-gay material. Order some for your friends today!
Few people know that Focus on the Family powerful evangelical Christian para-church based in Colorado Springswill give you, absolutely free of charge, books, CDs, and DVDs. Usually people pay for these products, and the millions of dollars raised helps Focus on the Family produce yet more books and CDs featuring Dr. James Dobson and other Focus "experts." (Focus on the Family's experts, when they're not chatting on the phone with Karl Rove, run around the country teaching people how to stop being so gay and when it's appropriate to kick their kids' asses.)
John Sugg of Whimspiration found James Dobson's support for a man who calls for the public stoning of gays and atheists disturbing. I posted on this a few days ago - I too find it disturbing
James Dobson's Focus on the Family is now selling DeMar's book, America's Christian Heritage. Dobson himself has a warm relationship with many in the movement, and he has admitted voting for Reconstructionist presidential candidate Howard Phillips in 1996.
James Dobson has incurred the wrath of gay blogger's. Confessions of an Amateur Queer's rant is interesting.
If he is opposed to the existence of homosexuals, that’s fine—no one (as far as I know) is asking him to be a homosexual—but I don’t understand his obsession with forcing everyone else to conform to his own views. Claiming that he’s doing it for religious reasons is ludicrous; Jesus said to spread the good news. None of his political activities or anti-gay activism does anything to spread God’s love. If he was truly concerned about following the teachings of his particular religion, he would stop trying to alienate people and force his own version of what’s right and wrong on everyone else and concentrate on preaching the gospel.
The Wiccan community is starting to watch Dobson.
The program, coordinated by the Colorado-based group Focus on the Family and its influential founder, James Dobson, will use a variety of methods -- including information inserted in church publications and booths placed outside worship services -- to try to recruit millions of new voters in 2006 and beyond.
I'll finish with Station Charon and a post called The Real Worms Inside the Apple. It is a long rant targeting many who are trying to bring down America. I must admit, I skipped to the nutball religious leaders section. I'm going back to read the whole thing after I post.
Some of the biggest members of the Filthy Fifths are the evangelical Christian radical clerics. These are the worst of the worst when it comes to distortion and the spewing of bigoted diatribes and anti-American sentiment all wrapped up in the cross and the flag. Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell...
I read through 25 articles for this post. The top 25 in Technorati. The vast majority were critical of Dobson. It has been the same each week. Most people are concerned about the anti-everything rhetoric he spews. We should be worried. If you are like me, an unbeliever, the target he draws is on our backs.
4 comments:
I appreciate the link to my blog, however John Sugg isn't a writer for Whimspiration, but he did write a really good article that I posted to my blog with credits. *smile*
You have a great blog here. Thanks for showing it to me by commenting.
Even though I have very different views from yours (practically the opposite!), I enjoyed reading your post. I do have a few questions and comments.
1. How is it fair to characterize Dobson as an evil-doer? What grounds do you have to determine what is evil and what is good?
2. You want Dobson to stop "forcing everyone else to conform to his own views," but aren't you trying to force him to conform to your own view (i.e., that he should not advocate against homosexuality)?
3. You're guilty of the fallacy of "guilt by association" by bringing up Dobson's alleged support for Howard Phillips. I don't know whether your facts are correct but it doesn't matter. Voting for someone does not and never has implied that the voter agrees with the candidate on all issues. You would have to give some evidence that Dobson himself supports public stoning of gays.
We all, whoever we are, agree that these issues are important, and so people on all sides should work hard to advocate for their point of view. We're all advocating for absolutes, either that homosexuality is acceptable absolutely or that it is not acceptable absolutely. There is no middle position. Given that, let's play fair by striving with each other mightily but not demonizing each other as you have done in this post. (Whether Dobson has engaged in his own demonizing from time to time I don't know, and it doesn't affect the principle in any case. I don't happen to read Dobson.)
Best regards!
1. How is it fair to characterize Dobson as an evil-doer...
Evil - the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice. I, and many other godless people, think treating gays as sick is morally wrong. Dobson not only things gays re sick, he moves against them at every opportunity. Thus - Dobson qualifies as an evil doer.
2. You want Dobson to stop "forcing everyone else to conform to his own views," but aren't you trying...
Not really - I merely ask that he mind his own business. Another persons sexual behavior is none of his (or mine business) as long as no harm is done to another party. It is a core libertarian principle. Dobson believes it is his right to legislate other peoples behavior or the consequences his behavior. He does this based on his religious views - yet many do not share his views. He should focus on other issues.
3. You're guilty of the fallacy of "guilt by association" by bringing up Dobson's alleged support for Howard Phillips. I don't know whether your facts...
I don't know what to say here - if you lay down with pigs you get up smelling like pigs. Howard Phillips wants to stone people for being gay, Dobson sells his book, therefor Dobson grants tacit approval of said action. A good way to break this association is to come out and say "stoning is evil and a little on the crazy side too". But, Dobson is silent.
We all, whoever we are, agree that these issues are important, and so people on all sides should work hard to advocate for their point of view...
I can back off demonizing Dobson and others - it is lazy writing on my part in the first place. My real problem with Dobson is his absolute certainty that being gay is wrong. I on the other hand, don't know if being gay is right or wrong. I am not qualities to answer, and I really don't care very much. They are free to do as they please in our great democracy as long as they harm nobody else. I view gays, atheists and others as a minority population that needs to be protected from the "moral rightness" of the majority population.
Thanks for your answers. I just want to follow up. It seems to me that given Dobson's views that homosexuality is wrong, it would be evil of him not to speak against it.
Isn't it also a core libertarian principle that people have a right to speak about whatever concerns them and advocate for nearly anything they want? And aren't most laws fundamentally moral legislation? When Congress makes a law that corporate executives can't backdate stock options, it's because that's fraud and fraud is wrong. Even if you make the argument that fraud hurts others (which you claim homosexuality does not, and to which I reply, "no contest"), you're still implicitly asserting that it's wrong to hurt others. Legislation is all about morality, my friend.
And does it matter whether Dobson's views stem from his religious beliefs or not? His views are totally unrelated to christianity as an external or practiced religion but stem from Christianity's teachings about the world. Secularism, while it might not be a religion strictly speaking, makes competing claims about the world. Whether the origin of the claim is a Christian view of the world or a secular view of the world is irrelevant, and a claim otherwise is what's known as the genetic fallacy.
So, I think you've said too much when you say that Dobson should mind his own business and focus on other issues. This is no more your business than his. I think what you should rather say is that you wish he would focus on other issues--because you happen to disagree with him. Because I happen to disagree with you, I wish that you would focus on other issues. That's not at all the same as saying that you should. In fact, because you believe that Dobson is an evil doer, it would be wrong for you to, just like it would be wrong for him.
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