Make Your Voice Heard – Dobson & The Radio Hall of Fame
October 23, 2008 by Justin Cole, GLAAD's Director of Digital Media
On November 8, 2008, the Museum of Broadcast Communications plans to induct James Dobson’s anti-gay Focus on the Family radio program into its Radio Hall of Fame.
And while the Radio Hall of Fame justifies the induction by claiming it, “does not endorse or support the views voiced by any nominee or inductee on the air or via any other platform,” his nomination came from “the 27 members of its Steering Committee[.]”
Either the members of the Steering Committee don’t know who James Dobson is and of the hurtful and defamatory things he says about LGBT people, or they just don’t care.
James Dobson has a long history of attacking and making things up about gay people. Unfortunately, the media will often times give Dobson a national platform outside his radio program to spread his lies, lies that then reach millions.
Among his many false claims, Dobson has said being gay “has to do with an identity crisis that occurs too early to remember it” and that gay people “have as many as 300 to 1,000 partners in a lifetime.” He has also falsely claimed that committed gay couples “cannot be a family” and that allowing them to get married would “destroy the family.”
Dobson has even gone after entertainment media, asking if the makers of the children’s movie Happy Feet were “getting at the idea that homosexuality is genetic” and said that the Britney/Madonna kiss was, “part of this continuing effort to desensitize people to homosexuality[.]”
Respect My Research, a website run by the organization Truth Wins Out, takes Dobson to task when he cites discredited research and distorts credible research to fit his arguments.
In our video above we highlighted just one example. In December 2006, Time Magazine gave Dobson a national platform to spread lies and distortions about same-sex parenting. The article Dobson authored – “Two Mommies is One Too Many” – was fact checked by the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters. They found it to “misrepresent” science and make baseless claims.
Dr. Carol Gilligan, one of the researchers who had their work cited in his article, was outraged and wrote an open letter to Dobson:
I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future. I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine. Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.
Dr. Kyle Pruett, another researcher cited in the Time article, also responded to Dobson:
You cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes. This practice is condemned in real science, common though it may be in pseudo-science circles. There is nothing in my longitudinal research or any of my writings to support such conclusions.
James Dobson doesn’t deserve to be honored for his lies and distortions aimed to hurt and marginalize LGBT people.
Please take a moment and contact the Museum of Broadcast Communications and let them know just who they are about to induct into their Radio Hall of Fame.
Call: (312) 822-0512
Email: Bruce Dumont (CEO) – brucedumont@museum.tv
Email: Gina Doyle – gdoyle@museum.tv (No longer working)
Email: Gina Loizzo - gloizzo@museum.tv
**UPDATE** Due to so many of you making your voice heard, the original address above stopped working today (even though it is still listed on the Radio Hall of Fame contact page). We have listed a new address to contact.
For more information, Truth Wins Out also has a website dedicated to educating people on Dobson’s anti-gay rhetoric they call “Dump Dobson.”
Dear Mr. Dumont,
Focus on the Family’s “Christian” values have been literally lethal to a member of untold numbers of families in this country…. and probably around the world. This fact is the result of the lies propagated by the man behind Focus on the Family, James Dobson. This is a man whose character does NOT merit a place in the Radio Hall of Fame and Museum. Mr. Dobson’s claim to be Christian runs counter to his outspoken behavior and vocalizations which spread damaging deceit and lies about a whole segment of our population.
One who prostitutes radio to lie about and degrade others must not be legitimized by an institution whose purpose is to celebrate the accomplishments and talents of those who have given something of value to this historical and popular mode of communication.
For the sake of its own future and honor, I hope the steering committee of the Radio Hall of Fame rethinks what appears to be a very ignoble decision here. As Mr. Dobson’s Focus on the Family’s induction stands to defame and contaminate the very mission of your institution, which states: “The National Radio Hall of Fame & Museum recognizes and showcases contemporary talent from today’s diverse programming formats, as well as the pioneers who shaped the medium during its infancy”.
Although I understand how one might see James Dobson and Focus on the Family as a “talent” in a particular programming format, so was Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. I really can’t believe all 27 steering committee members can be so heartless. Please, reconsider.
Yours truly,
Karen L. Lewis
OK
918-*******
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