James Dobson, a child psychologist who founded the conservative ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89.
Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson launched a radio show counseling Christians on how to be good parents and started Focus on the Family in 1977.
He became a force for pushing conservative Christian ideals in mainstream American politics in the 1980s alongside fundamentalist giants like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. At its peak, Focus on the Family had more than 1,000 employees and gave Dobson a platform to weigh in on legislation and serve as an adviser to five presidents.
His death was confirmed by the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, as well as their two children, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.
“Mount Rushmore” of conservatives
Dobson interviewed President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985, and Falwell called him a rising star in 1989. Decades later, he was among the evangelical leaders tapped to advise President Donald Trump. in 2016.
In 2022, he celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade — including Trump’s conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court credited with the landmark decision that allowed states to ban abortion.
“Whether you like Donald Trump or not, whether you supported or voted for him or not, if you are supportive of this Dobbs decision that struck down Roe v. Wade, you have to mention in the same breath the man who made it possible,” he said in a ministry broadcast.
He belongs on the “Mount Rushmore” of Christian conservatives, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, another group Dobson founded.
“Very few people have had such a positive impact in the shaping of the American family, from what we would describe as a biblical standpoint,” said Perkins, promoting ideas that pushed back against progressive parenting of the 1960s.
Weighing Dobson’s legacy
John Fea, an American History professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, has been critical of Dobson’s politics and ideas but recounts how his own father was a better parent after becoming an evangelical Christian and listening to Dobson’s radio program. Fea’s dad was a tough Marine who spanked his children out of anger, which Dobson opposed.
“Even as a self-identified evangelical Christian that I am, I have no use in my own life for Dobson’s politics or his child-rearing,” he said. “I’ve been critical of it most of my career. But as a historian what do you do with these stories? About a dad who becomes a better dad?”
Possible presidential run
After developing a following of millions, Dobson considered running for president in the 2000 election, following in the footsteps of former television minister Pat Robertson’s surprise success in 1988.
“He had a big audience. He was not afraid to speak out. He became a very important voice and there was even talk that he might run for president,” said Ralph Reed, a Christian conservative political organizer and lobbyist who founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “If Jim had decided to run, he would have been a major force.”
Despite their close association later in life, Reed’s enduring memory was as a younger political organizer traveling through rural America with Dobson’s voice as his sole companion.
“I’d be out there somewhere, and I could go to the AM dial and there was never a time, day or night when I couldn’t find that guy,” Reed said. “There will probably never be another one like him.”
Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the institute that bears his name. He continued with the Family Talk radio show, which is nationally syndicated and is carried by 1,500 radio outlets with more than half a million listeners weekly, according to the institute.
Opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights
His radio program featured guests talking about the importance of embracing religion and rejecting homosexuality, promoting the idea that people could change their sexuality.
“The homosexual community will tell us that transformations never occur. That you cannot change,” he said in a 2021 video posted on his institute’s site that promoted “success stories” of people who “no longer struggle with homosexuality” after attending a ministry. He said there is typically a “pain and agitation” associated with homosexuality.
Conversion therapy is the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.
The practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in March to hear a Colorado case about whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children.
Dobson’s evangelical nonprofit played a large role in Colorado earning its reputation as a “hate state” in 1992, along with the passing of an amendment that banned laws that protected gay people from discrimination, Rev. Josh Rumple of the First Congregational Church in downtown Colorado Springs said.
The First Congregational Church, which opened in 1874, worked to create a safe space for the queer community in Colorado Springs and boasts its “open and affirming” designation that welcomes people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.
“We proudly hang a pride banner on the outside of our church, which gets torn down every few months, but we’ve put one back up,” Rumple said. “We always will.”
The impacts of Dobson’s work, including his creation of nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, has had devastating impacts on queer people across the country, including in Colorado Springs, through its advocacy for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, Rumple said.
“Kids are kicked out of their house because they’re not welcome in their home for having an identity that goes against what Focus on the Family stands for,” he said.
Ted Bundy interview
An anti-pornography crusader, Dobson recorded a video interview with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before his 1989 execution. Bundy told Dobson that exposure to pornography helped fuel his sexual urges to a point that he looked for satisfaction by mutilating, killing and raping women.
At the time, Dobson’s Focus program was broadcast daily on 1,200 radio stations.
Months after the execution, Bundy’s attorney James Coleman downplayed the Dobson exchange
“I think that was a little bit of Ted telling the minister what he wanted to hear and Ted offering an explanation that would exonerate him personally,” Coleman said in an interview with the AP. “I had heard that before and I told Ted I never accepted it.”