It has come to my attention that some of you are not familiar with James Dobson (though most have correctly assumed he is a trash fire), so allow me to elaborate so you may more fully appreciate the situation.
Dobson, as stated above, was the founder of Focus on the Family, one of the largest and most influential Evangelical Christian organizations in the United States (and one that, as it is headquartered in my area, I have a particular distaste for). Despite never being ordained by any denomination (which honestly accounts for at least some of his bullshit, more on that later) he was one of the most powerful religious figures in the country, and deeply involved with conservative politics.
This description will have lead you to believe that Dobson was a bigoted, misogynistic theocrat who is at least partially responsible for all the far-right bullshit America has been dealing with of late--and you would be correct. But there are many ways he went above and beyond the usual awfulness:
1.) He promoted child abuse. So around the mid-to-late 20th century, a lot of people started going, "You know, maybe we shouldn't be hitting children as a disciplinary measure"--but not Dobson. He doubled down on it, writing books advocating for beating children as young as fifteen months, insisting it was the only way they would learn obedience to their parents (read: the father) and consequently to God. (Equating submission to patriarchal authority with godliness becomes extra-creepy in light of a lot of his other crap.)
2.) He heavily promoted "purity culture." You know purity balls? Those creepy events where dads bring their daughters as "dates" and the girls basically pledge their sexual autonomy to their fathers? Yeah, those were developed by Dobson's FotF associates and pushed on his radio show.
3.) Like pretty much every other Evangelical crusader, Dobson was anti-pornography--but he took it to the point where he enlisted none other than Ted Fucking Bundy in his agenda. Dobson interviewed Bundy the day before his execution, and got the serial killer on tape claiming that his exposure to porn was the direct cause of his crimes. Pretty much everyone who knows anything about Bundy knows that he was lying through his teeth to play into Dobson's sympathies and get more attention, but that didn't stop Dobson from selling tapes of the interview to the tune of over $1 million.
4.) This is more a personal beef, but I consider Dobson and FotF directly responsible for the commodification and commercialization of Christianity in America. They were the ones who turned churches into oversized, bland conference centers, glutted radios with nondescript pop songs about Jesus, and promoted lazy movies with heavy-handed messages about faith. If ever there was a man who turned a house of prayer into a den of thieves, it was James Dobson.
5.) Dobson believed himself to be entirely sanctified by God and free of sin. "Wait, Diva," I hear you saying, "Isn't that just basic Christian doctrine?" Not exactly. See, Christian views on divine grace can be anything from "God loves me in all my messy, imperfect humanity, and I do my best to show that love to all the messy, imperfect humans in my life in turn" to "I have accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior which is why I'm going to heaven and you're not," but Dobson believed he was incapable of sin. He believed that God had perfected him and everything he did--whether it was beating children, subjugating women, raking in millions of dollars through his proselytizing, or manipulating the political process--was good and just.
How could such a man be anything other than a monster?
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