James Dobson facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids James Dobson
Dobson c. 2007
Religion	Evangelical Christian
Founder of	Family Research Council Focus on the Family Family Policy Alliance
Education	Point Loma Nazarene University University of Southern California
Personal
Born	James Clayton Dobson Jr. (1936-04-21) April 21, 1936 (age 89) Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
Spouse	Shirley Deere (m. 1960)
Children	2
Religious career
Works	Marriage Under Fire Dare to Discipline The Strong-Willed Child

James Clayton Dobson Jr. (born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FotF), which he led from 1977 until 2010. In the 1980s, he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life. Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

As part of his former role in the organization he produced the daily radio program Focus on the Family, which the organization has said was broadcast in more than a dozen languages and on over 7,000 stations worldwide, and reportedly heard daily by more than 220 million people in 164 countries. Focus on the Family was also carried by about 60 U.S. television stations daily. In 2010, he launched the radio broadcast Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson.

Dobson advocates for "family values" — the instruction of children in heterosexuality and traditional gender roles, which he believes are mandated by the Christian Bible. The goal of this is to promote heterosexual marriage, which he views as a cornerstone of civilization that must be protected from the dangers of feminism and the LGBT rights movement. Dobson seeks to equip his audience to fight in the American culture war, which he calls the "Civil War of Values".

His writing career started as an assistant to Paul Popenoe. After Dobson's rise to prominence through promoting corporal punishment of disobedient children in the 1970s, he became a founder of purity culture in the 1990s. He has promoted his ideas via his various Focus on the Family affiliated organizations, the Family Research Council which he founded in 1981, Family Policy Alliance which he founded in 2004, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute which he founded in 2010, and a network of US state-based lobbying organizations called Family Policy Councils.

Early life and education

James Dobson was born to Myrtle Georgia (née Dillingham) and James C. Dobson Sr. on April 21, 1936, in Shreveport, Louisiana. From his earliest childhood, religion played a central part in his life. He once told a reporter that he learned to pray before he learned to talk, and says he gave his life to Jesus at the age of three, in response to an altar call by his father. He is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Church of the Nazarene ministers.

Dobson's mother was intolerant of "sassiness" and would strike her child with whatever object came to hand, including a shoe or belt; she once gave Dobson a "massive blow" with a girdle outfitted with straps and buckles.

The parents took their young son along to watch his father preach. Like most Nazarenes, they forbade dancing and going to movies. Young "Jimmie Lee" (as he was called) concentrated on his studies.

Dobson studied academic psychology and came to believe that he was being called to become a Christian counselor or perhaps a Christian psychologist. He attended Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) as an undergraduate and served as captain of the school's tennis team. In 1967, Dobson received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California.

Career

Early career

In 1967, he became an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years. At USC he was exposed to troubled youth and the counterculture of the 1960s. He found it "a distressing time to be so young" because society offered him no moral absolutes he felt he could rely upon. Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War was blossoming into a widespread rejection of authority, which Dobson viewed as "a sudden disintegration of moral and ethical principles" among Americans his age and the younger people he saw in clinical practice. This convinced him that "the institution of the family was disintegrating."

He spent 17 years on the staff of the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics. For a time, Dobson worked as an assistant to Paul Popenoe at the Institute of Family Relations, a marriage-counseling center, in Los Angeles. Popenoe counseled couples on the importance of same-race marriage and adherence to gender norms. Under Popenoe, Dobson published about male-female differences and the dangers of feminism.

When the American Psychological Association de-pathologized homosexuality by removing it from their list of mental disorders in 1973, Dobson resigned from the organization in protest. In 1976, he took a sabbatical from USC and Children's Hospital; he never returned.

With funding from a Christian publisher, he began to broadcast his ideas on the radio and in public lectures. Saying that he feared to repeat the mistakes of his own absentee father by being away on the lecture circuit, Dobson video recorded and distributed his lectures. He sent a representative around the country to solicit funding from Evangelical businessmen and distribute the videos. A video about absent fathers titled Where's Dad? had 100 million views by the early 1980s.

Focus on the Family

In 1977, he founded Focus on the Family. He grew the organization into a multimedia empire by the mid-1990s, including 10 radio programs, 11 magazines, numerous videos, and basketball camps, and program of faxing suggested sermon topics and bulletin fillers to thousands of churches every week. In 1995, the organization's budget was more than $100 million annually.

Jimmy Carter organized a White House Conference on Families in 1979–1980 that explicitly included a "diversity of families" with various structures. Dobson objected to this, believing that only his preferred notion of the traditional family — one headed by a male breadwinner married to a female caregiver — should be endorsed by the conference. He also objected to the fact that he was not invited to the planning for the event. At Dobson's urging, his listeners wrote 80,000 letters to the White House asking for Dobson to be invited, which he eventually was. This demonstrated to Dobson his power to rally his followers for political ends.

Beginning in 1980, Dobson built networks of political activists and founded lobbying organizations that advocated against LGBT rights, among other socially conservative policy goals. He nurtured relationships with conservative politicians, such as Ronald Reagan. He was among the founders of Family Research Council in 1981, a federal lobbying organization classified as a hate group, and Family Policy Councils that lobby at the level of state government. When Focus on the Family moved to Colorado Springs in 1991, the city started to be called "the Vatican of the Religious Right" with Dobson imagined as an evangelical pope.

Focus on the Family established an ex-gay program called Love Won Out in 1998. The program promoted conversion therapy, the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to make gay people straight. Dobson increased his promotion of Love Won Out in 2000 upon discovering that opposition to gay marriage was helping the Christian Right gain members and voters. State-level affiliates of FotF drafted gay marriage bans in several states, starting with Nebraska Initiative 416 in 2000. Dobson broadcast that gay marriage was turning children from faithful Christian homes against God. His arguments caused large evangelical turnouts in support of the gay marriage prohibitions, resulting in defense of marriage amendments to thirty U.S. state constitutions.

Dobson stepped down as president and CEO of Focus on the Family in 2003, and resigned from the position of chairman of the board in February 2009. Dobson explained his departure as twofold: firstly, to allow a smooth transfer of leadership to the next generation, and in this case, to Jim Daly whom he directly appointed as his replacement. And secondly, because he and Daly had divergent views on policy, "especially when it comes to confronting those who would weaken the family and undermine our faith." After he stepped down, Focus on the Family hired an orthodoxy expert to maintain Dobson's message. Free to become more explicitly political without imperiling Focus on the Family's tax exemptions, Dobson rededicated himself primarily to lobbying instead of advice to families. While Daly attempted to appeal to a new generation of evangelicals with softened messages on homosexuality, Dobson remained hard-line. Focus on the Family removed archives of Dobson's writing from their headquarters and website.

Ted Bundy interview

Dobson interviewed serial killer Ted Bundy on-camera the day before Bundy's execution on January 24, 1989.

Shift to political activity

In 2004, Dobson founded Family Policy Alliance, a lobbying arm of his media empire. With a more permissive tax status than Focus on the Family, it is allowed to directly fundraise for political campaigns. The Alliance also coordinates the action of Dobson's network of state-based Family Policy Councils. Together, these organizations seek to encode traditional gender roles into public policy and law. They consider LGBT rights to be a threatening "LGBT agenda."

Throughout its existence, Dobson has attacked the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a US government program to fight AIDS worldwide. He renewed his attack in 2023. Focus on the Family received a grant of $49,505 through PEPFAR in 2017 to operate an abstinence-only purity pledge program.

Dr. James Dobson Family Institute

In 2010, Dobson founded the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, a non-profit organization that produces his radio program, Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. He stepped away from leadership of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute in 2022, naming Joe Waresak the new president. He continues to broadcast his radio show.

Dobson frequently appears as a guest on the Fox News Channel.

Personal life

Dobson married Shirley Deere on August 26, 1960. The couple have two children, Danae and Ryan.

Dobson turned control of some of Focus on the Family's youth-oriented magazine titles over to his son Ryan Dobson in 2009.

Awards

At the invitation of Presidents and Attorneys General, Dobson has also served on government advisory panels and testified at several government hearings. He was given the "Layman of the Year" award by the National Association of Evangelicals in 1982, "The Children's Friend" honor by Childhelp USA (an advocate agency against child abuse) in 1987, and the Humanitarian Award by the California Psychological Association in 1988. In 2005, Dobson received an honorary doctorate (his 16th) from Indiana Wesleyan University and was inducted into IWU's Society of World Changers, while speaking at the university's Academic Convocation.

In 2008, Dobson's Focus on the Family program was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame to controversy from secular listeners opposed to Dobson's views, along with those supporting LGBTQ rights.

Social views

Views on marriage

James Dobson is a strong proponent of marriage defined as "one where husband and wife are lawfully married, are committed to each other for life," and have a homemaker mother and breadwinner father. According to his view, women are not deemed inferior to men because both are created in God's image, but each gender has biblically mandated roles. He recommends that married women with children under the age of 18 focus on mothering, rather than work outside the home.

Views on schooling

Focus on the Family supports private school vouchers and tax credits for religious schools. According to Focus on the Family website, Dobson believes that parents are ultimately responsible for their children's education, and encourages parents to visit their children's schools to ask questions and to join the PTA so that they may voice their opinions.

According to People for the American Way, Focus on the Family material has been used to challenge a book or curriculum taught in public schools. Critics, such as People for the American Way, allege that Focus on the Family encourages Christian teachers to establish prayer groups in public schools. Dobson supports student-led prayer in public schools, and believes that allowing student-led Christian prayer in schools does not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Views on discipline of children

The Strong-Willed Child says that if authority is portrayed correctly to a child, the child will understand how to interact with other authority figures:

By learning to yield to the loving authority ... of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life—his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers.

If allowed to challenge parental authority, Dobson says, children would challenge God's authority when they grew older. Hence, rebellion must be punished to protect the child's salvation. The parent should model both divine mercy and wrath to prepare the inherently sinful child for a relationship with God. Dobson warned of the dire consequences of failing to discipline one's children: "Eli, the priest, permitted his sons to desecrate the temple. All three were put to death."

Views on tolerance and diversity

In the winter of 2004-2005, the We Are Family Foundation sent American elementary schools approximately 60,000 copies of a free DVD using popular cartoon characters (especially SpongeBob SquarePants) to "promote tolerance and diversity." Dobson contended that "tolerance" and "diversity" are "buzzwords" that the We Are Family Foundation misused as part of a "hidden agenda" to promote homosexuality. Kate Zernik noted Dobson asserting: "tolerance and its first cousin, diversity, 'are almost always buzzwords for homosexual advocacy.'" He stated on the Focus on the Family website that "childhood symbols are apparently being hijacked to promote an agenda that involves teaching homosexual propaganda to children." He offered as evidence the association of many leading LGBT rights organizations, including GLAAD, GLSEN, HRC, and PFLAG, with the We Are Family Foundation as shown by links which he claims once existed on their website.

The We Are Family Foundation countered that Dobson had mistaken their organization with "an unrelated Web site belonging to another group called 'We Are Family,' which supports gay youth." Dobson countered:

I want to be clear: the We Are Family Foundation—the organization that sponsored the video featuring SpongeBob and the other characters was, until this flap occurred, making available a variety of explicitly pro-homosexual materials on its Web site. It has since endeavored to hide that fact, but my concerns are as legitimate today as they were when I first expressed them in January.

In September 2005, Tolerance.org published a follow-up message advertising the DVD's continued availability, including We Are Family Foundation president Nancy Hunt's speculation that many of the DVDs may be "still sitting in boxes, unused, because of Dobson's vitriolic attack."

Views on homosexuality

In Dobson's view, homosexuality results from influences in a child's environment rather than an inborn trait.

Focus on the Family ministry sponsors the monthly conference Love Won Out, where participants hear "powerful stories of ex-gay men and women." Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) has protested against the conference in Orlando, questioning both its methodology and supposed success. In regards to the conference, Dobson has stated that "Gay activists come with preconceived notions about who we are and what we believe and about the hate that boils from within, which is simply not true. Regardless of what the media might say, Focus on the Family has no interest in promoting hatred toward homosexuals or anyone else. We also don't wish to deprive them of their basic constitutional rights ... The Constitution applies to all of us." Dobson strongly opposes the movement to legitimize same-sex relationships.

Critics have stated that Dobson's views on homosexuality do not represent the mainstream views of the mental health community, with Dan Gilgoff referring to the positions of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association on homosexuality. Sociologist Judith Stacey criticized Dobson for claiming that sociological studies show that gay couples do not make good parents. She stated that Dobson's claim "is a direct misrepresentation of my research." In response to Dobson's claim that "there have been more than ten thousand studies that have showed that children do best when they are raised with a mother and a father who are committed to each other," Stacey replied that "[a]ll of those studies that Dobson is referring to are studies that did not include gay or lesbian parents as part of the research base."

In 2017, Dobson was among the first to sign the Nashville Statement, written by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The statement specifies conservative evangelical views on gender roles, condemning LGBT-affirming Christians: "We affirm that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness."

Views on gender

Dobson views the gender binary as fundamental to humanity; he believes God created men and women to differ "in every cell of their bodies." These complementary differences make them well-suited to traditional gender roles. "Males and females differ biochemically, anatomically, and emotionally" according to Dobson. Men like to "hunt and fish and hike in the wilderness" while women prefer to "stay at home and wait for them." Because men have a fragile ego and women are emotionally vulnerable, "men derive self-esteem by being respected; women feel worthy when they are loved." Men and women are obligated to adhere to the "time-honored roles of protector and protected."

Though created for traditional gender roles, people are not born following these roles. The roles must be taught, Dobson says, and must be defended from anyone who questions them.

Dobson encourages "daddy-daughter dating" in which fathers and daughters set aside time for special activities together. Because he believes heterosexuality must be cultivated, Dobson intended these romanticized attachments to model proper heterosexual partnership to girls age six or younger. An employee of Dobson's created the first purity ball — a father-daughter dance event promoting female chastity — in 1998. Dobson promoted the purity balls on his radio show. Along with other fundamentalist figures such as Billy Graham, Dobson is considered a founder of purity culture, a Christian subculture in which immorality by women or LGBT people is considered a national threat.

Dobson considers transgender people a threat, writing in 2016 that "a married man with any gumption" would defend his wife's privacy in the bathroom from "a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman." He seemed to romanticize a time in the past in when men were masculine enough to shoot trans women. He also considers feminists a threat because they question the natural leadership of men. In his 1975 book What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women he denounces the "feminist propaganda" of strong female characters in movies, complaining when men are shown as inferior to a "confident superchick." This is dangerous, he says, because the true role of women is to harness the superior energy of men.

Gendered language in the Bible

In response to a 1997 article in World magazine claiming that the New International Version of the Bible was going to be printed with gender-neutral language, Dobson called a meeting at Focus on the Family headquarters of influential men in the religious publishing business. The group drafted the "Colorado Springs Guidelines" which require Bible translations to use male-default language such as the word "man" to designate the human race. As a result, plans for the gender-neutral Bible version were halted. When Dobson discovered his own Odyssey Bible used gender-neutral language, he discontinued it and offered refunds. According to World, Dobson's 1997 meeting eventually led to the publication of the English Standard Version in 2001, which avoids gender-neutral language. He opposed publication of Today's New International Version in 2002 because of the "political correctness" of the translation and the publisher's rejection of the Colorado Springs Guidelines.

Political and social influence

Dobson's social and political opinions are widely read among many evangelical church congregations in the United States; he is also highly influential within the United States Republican Party. Among other conservative causes, his lobbying contributed significantly to banning same-sex marriage across many US states.

Social influence

Dobson's books on corporal punishment helped to legitimize the practice, providing it with theological grounding for Christian readers. When opposition to physical discipline became widespread in the 1980s and 1990s in American society, conservative Protestants emerged as perhaps the most ardent remaining supporters of corporal punishment. This support was bolstered by "authority-centered" parenting techniques advised in Dobson's books.

Dobson frequently cautions parents to use corporal punishment only in a limited and empathetic way. Theologian Donald Eric Capps and psychologist Adah Maurer argued in the 1990s that, in practice, parents frequently use indiscriminate violence against children. They argue Dobson's work provides parents with self-serving theological rationalizations for their violent outbursts. Capps and Maurer conclude that the popularity of corporal punishment in this era damaged children in ways that may last into adulthood.

Throughout his career at Focus on the Family, Dobson argued for gender role instruction. The feminist and LGBT rights movements, because they seek to disturb gender roles, are a threat not only to family harmony but to national strength. To preserve pious gender roles, Dobson distributed Christian-targeted psychological advice. His daily radio program Focus on the Family was (according to his organization) broadcast in more than a dozen languages and on over 7,000 stations worldwide, and reportedly heard daily by more than 220 million people in 164 countries.

Through his books and broadcasts, Dobson sought to prepare parents to fight in the American culture wars, a conflict in which Dobson described that "parents of faith are at war with culture" and which he has labeled a "Civil War of Values". Dobson has wielded significant influence over parents and politically conservative Christians, and, in the 1990s, a reportedly significant segment of this dedicated following were women who worked inside the home.

Around two thousand radio stations aired Dobson's program to an audience of six to ten million by the early 2000s. With over two million addresses on his mailing list, his organization launched a publishing house. Richard Land called him "the most influential evangelical leader in America" at that time, saying his influence was comparable to Billy Graham in the 1960s-70s.

He is a founder of purity culture, a nationwide chastity movement, and Alliance Defending Freedom. Dobson is a member of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He is a supporter of the Promise Keepers and was a contributor to their 1994 book The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper.

Political influence

Dobson at the Values Voters conference in Washington, D.C., 2007

Dobson has chosen to exercise political influence behind the scenes, as "political fixer." This helps him to maintain his credibility with his audience. He has never run for office or acted as the public head of a primarily political organization.

Starting in 1980, Dobson began to build a network of conservative activists. In 1981, he founded the Family Research Council as a political arm through which "social conservative causes" could achieve greater political influence. Dobson was appointed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to the National Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 1982, where he served for two years. Through the 1980s, he coordinated the creation of Family Policy Councils in most US states, lobbying organizations that act on the level of state politics.

By the 1990s, Dobson had amassed a sizeable network of conservative politicians, many of whom he met with regularly. Beginning in the same decade, Dobson and his vast activist organization helped pass state-level bans on gay marriage across the US. His top legislative goal was prohibiting gay marriage at the federal level, with a constitutional amendment. In 2005, he told his biographer "my greatest concern is for the relentless attack by homosexual activists who are determined to destroy the institution of marriage."

Dobson was an ally of Judge Roy Moore starting in the early 1990s. He rallied his audience in support of the judge in 1997 and again in 2003 because of the Moore's refusal to remove a Ten Commandments display from the Alabama Judicial Building. Viewing Moore as "a man of proven character and integrity" Dobson endorsed Moore's political campaigns until 2017.

Dobson founded a fundraising and lobbying arm of FotF called Focus on the Family Action, now called Family Policy Alliance. As a 501(c)(4) organization, it faces fewer IRS restrictions on political activity than FotF. In the organization's first six months of existence, it raised nearly nine million dollars in support of six Republican candidates for competitive US Senate seats. All six won their races.

A May 2005 article by Chris Hedges in Harper's Magazine described Dobson as "perhaps the most powerful figure in the Dominionist movement" and "a crucial player in getting out the Christian vote for George W. Bush." Discernment Ministries, a site that describes dominionism as a heresy, characterized Dobson as belonging to the "Patriotic American" brand of dominionism, calling him "One of its most powerful leaders."

In November 2004, Dobson was described by the online magazine Slate as "America's most influential evangelical leader." The article stated "Forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who in their dotage have marginalized themselves with gaffes ... Dobson is now America's most influential evangelical leader, with a following reportedly greater than that of either Falwell or Robertson at his peak ... Dobson may have delivered Bush his victories in Ohio and Florida." Further, "He's already leveraging his new power. Dobson has sometimes complained that the Republican Party may take the votes of social conservatives for granted, and has suggested that evangelicals may withhold support from the GOP if the party does not more strongly support conservative family issues.

However, in 2006, Dobson said that, while "there is disillusionment out there with Republicans" and "that worries me greatly," he nonetheless suggested voters turn out and vote Republican in 2006. "My first inclination was to sit this one out," but according to The New York Times, Dobson then added that "he had changed his mind when he looked at who would become the leaders of Congressional committees if the Democrats took over."

Dobson garnered national media attention once again in February 2008 after releasing a statement in the wake of Senator John McCain's expected success in the so-called "Super Tuesday" Republican primary elections. In his statement, Dobson said: "I cannot, and will not, vote for Senator John McCain, as a matter of conscience," and indicated that he would refrain from voting altogether if McCain were to become the Republican candidate, echoing other conservative commentators' concerns about the Senator's conservatism. He endorsed Mike Huckabee for president.

On June 24, 2008, Dobson criticized statements made by U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in Obama's 2006 "Call to Renewal" address. Dobson stated that Obama was "distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view." On October 23, 2008, Dobson published a "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" that proposed that an Obama presidency could lead to: mandated homosexual teachings across all schools; the banning of firearms in entire states; the end of the Boy Scouts, home schooling, Christian school groups, Christian adoption agencies, and talk radio; mandatory bonuses for gay soldiers; terrorist attacks across America; the nuclear bombing of Tel Aviv; the conquering of most of Eastern Europe by Russia; the end of health care for Americans over 80; out-of-control gasoline prices; and complete economic disaster in the United States, among other catastrophes.

Dobson supports intelligent design and has spoken at conferences on the subject, and frequently criticizes evolution. In 2007, Dobson was one of 25 evangelicals who called for the ouster of Rev. Richard Cizik from his position at the National Association of Evangelicals because Cizik had taken a stance urging evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

On June 13, 2007, the National Right to Life Committee ousted Colorado Right to Life after the latter ran a full-page ad criticizing Dobson.

On May 30, 2010, Dobson delivered the pre-race invocation at the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 automobile race, raising criticism about his association with a sport associated with sponsors and activities which would not meet his definition of family-friendly.

Dobson endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican primaries as well as Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton. In 2016, Dobson was named by Christianity Today as one of the Trump Administration's top "Evangelical Faith Advisers".

In 2020, Dobson worked alongside other conservative Evangelicals and Evangelical organizations, including Jim Daly and Focus on the Family, to support the reelection of President Donald Trump. He echoed his support of the President throughout the impeachment proceedings earlier that year.