Controversial Focus on the Family Chairman Emeritus and founder James Dobson died on Aug. 21 at age 89 after a brief illness, according to media reports.
Although Dobson’s organization lauded him, many feel his legacy will be defined by his longtime commitment to educating evangelicals on “traditional family values”—which immediately put him and his group at odds with queer- and abortion-rights activists.
Dobson—who founded the Christian ministry in 1977—openly advocated against abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and laws that barred conversion therapy from attempting to “cure” gay people, Newsweek noted. Dobson advised or counseled U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, according to Fox News.
SPLC has listed Focus on the Family—which reportedly reaches more than 18 million people in 98 countries—as a hate group; in part, it cited a quote Dobson said in 2004: “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.” SPLC itself added, “By billing itself as a Christian counseling ‘ministry,’ [Focus on the Family] positions itself as a seeming trusted source for information that pathologizes LGBTQ+ identity and advocates harmful psychological interventions that reinforce anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies.”
In 2008, GLAAD criticized the fact that the internationally syndicated “Focus on the Family” radio program, founded by Dobson, had been voted into Chicago’s National Radio Hall of Fame. At the time, Museum of Broadcast Communications President Bruce DuMont said that the general public could also recommend nominees. The public was allowed to vote for the 2008 National Radio Hall of Fame for free online, and it was the first year that voting was free and completely open to the public. Then- GLAAD president Neil Giuliano said, “For 20 years, James Dobson has used his expansive, well-funded media platform to perpetuate false and misleading information which [contributes] to putting gay and lesbian families in harm’s way.” (Controversial anti-gay radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger was also nominated, but she was not chosen as an inductee that year, although she was inducted in 2018.)
Dobson was president of Focus on the Family until 2003. The responsibilities of the ministry’s daily oversight eventually passed to Jim Daly, Dobson’s handpicked successor. Dobson stayed as the board chair until February 2009, and he was the primary voice of the daily show until February 2010, when he launched the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, which had a more political focus, per The Hill. He left that post in 2022.