Dr. James Dobson's Assault on America

I think I was deceived once into thinking that Dr. Dobson was just another conservative, religious icon of talk radio, one with ministries that did good work, with a positive message in general, and one who was mostly apolitical. Apparently, either the veil has been lifted, or he is becoming increasingly political. For those of you who do not know about this particularly shrill voice of the Radical Right Wing Conservative Movement, he's been running a multimillion dollar industry including books, radio, tapes, and more since the 1970's. He's a very wealthy man who fancies himself as a crossbreed between minister and shrink - something that breeds a particularly distasteful element of "I know better than you".

Recently, on his radio show, Dobson equated the "black robed men" on the Supreme Court to the "white robed men of the Ku Klux Klan". He was quoting someone else - but used that quote to make a point of his own - that America is becoming increasingly ruled by a tyrannical minority known as the judiciary. Think about that for a moment. Normal people, even if they disagreed with a court decision, can identify that the courts are integral to the checks and balances system designed by the framers all those years ago.

While I won't suggest that the Terry Schiavo case is akin to Brown v. Board of Education or Marbury v. Madison, the suggestion that the Supreme Court is instituting a "tyranny of the minority" has always been used by conservative elements as a means to protest decisions that constituents disagree with. If you were to extend Dobson's argument (and his host Levin who was shilling for his book), then the Court would be rendered into irrelevance and valuable and necessary social change would not be possible. The government should ensure that schools are integrated, the government should stay out of personal decisions about when to disconnect life support, the government should protect minorities from employment discrimination, etc. But Dobson specifically rejects that role of the Court because he's demanded that Bush appoint "strict constructionists", i.e. those that want to turn back the clock completely.

What is particularly frightening about this new breed of Radicalism is that not only has it established legitimacy (because Christian fundamentalism can never be a bad thing right? - Not like them Islamic Fundamentalists), but also, these people are running the country. And this is what's truly scary. In the mid-1990's, Dobson, who I see as representative of this new breed of extremism (he certainly carries a ton of influence through radio), rejected the "legitimacy" of the "current regime" and constitutional democracy because the courts were rejecting "divine law" (abortion and gay rights). This is just as frightening as former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the highest legal official in the land and noted coverer of Lady Liberty, a statue he deemed "obscene", suggesting that he would be judged by the "laws of God", not the laws of men.

Aren't with me yet? Here's a list of things Dobson supports and advocates:

Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General - Noted legal mind that wrote the pro-torture memos, surely something overtly Christian.

No gay rights - In fact, he said in 2004 that gay marriage will "presag[e] the fall of Western Civilization itself" and that "Homosexuals...want to destroy the institution of marriage" and that gay marriage "will destroy the earth." A bit dramatic, don't you think?

Supports Colorado's Amendment 2 - Bans all gay rights, grants special rights to heterosexuals. Didn't the bible say something about loving your neighbor? I didn't see any caveats in there about sexual orientation.

He accused Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) of being a "God's people hater".

His "family values" include placing a priority on spanking children - something that he has advocated in not one, but two books. "Two or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.'"

He attacked SpongeBob SquarePants as being a tool for the radical homosexual agenda (whatever that is). I have no idea what 'SpongeBob SquarePants' is or means, but I'm pretty sure that Dobson's attack makes him look like something that rhymes with ghoul.

He has attacked the Girl Scouts of pushing "radical feminism" and "humanism" because, as we all know, those Samoa's are really more than tasty cookie covered in chocolate and coconut. No, actually, those cookies are the "poison pill" of the new Girl Scout led feminist movement that seeks to overthrow the male dominated patriarchy and replace it will an all woman matriarchy.

He supported Alabama's attempt to have a concrete display of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building - a clear violation of church and state - by suggesting that it was "ironic" that the fight was ongoing in Montgomery, the same place that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat - because, you know, not being able to trumpet your religious beliefs in a courthouse is pretty much the same as being denied fundamental human rights in every category for hundreds of years. Here's a gem from that event: “It can be said that people of faith are being sent to the back of the bus, and we’re not going to go there.” I think I just threw up in my mouth.

He opposes all stem cell research.

He has long argued that "secular humanists" have stripped the nation of its Christian heritage, something that is a fundamental and embarrassing misreading of US history (founding fathers were deists, yo!, who were specially careful to create barriers between church and state because of the English model they just rejected).

He went nuts when the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that criminalized gay sex, suggesting that the Lawrence decision risks "the unraveling of a “God-ordained institution.""

I could go on and on, but I think you see the point. The new front of the Radical Evangelical Christian Political Movement is a man with demented ideas, rampant paranoia, and downright foolish notions about the world. In short, his increasingly vocal engagement in American politics smacks of the same type of social disease that enabled racism and sexism to survive for so long in America, something that is in direct opposition to his biblical message of tolerance and compassion.

He's more like Strom Thurmond than the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. And given the power he currently wields, that's simply terrifying.