Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS RESPOND TO JAMES DOBSON'S INACCURATE STATEMENTS

Judgmental Rhetoric Does Not Follow the Teachings of Jesus

Washington, DC November 29, 2006 James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, made a number of highly inaccurate statements on matters of faith, sexuality, liberalism and the United States Constitution in on CNN's Larry King Live, November 22, 2006.

The Institute for Progressive Christianity, a think tank comprising mainstream liberal Christians is issuing a correction of Dobson's crackpot assertions.

KING: If the left gets glee, Doctor, does the right get glee over sexual peccadilloes on the left?

DOBSON: That's very possible. We're all inclined to look at other people. But it's interesting to me that those, again, on the more liberal end of the spectrum are often those who have no value system or at least they say there is no moral and immoral, there is no right or wrong. It's moral relativism.

"For James Dobson to claim that liberals do not know the difference between right and wrong is new twist on McCarthyism," said Frank L. Cocozzelli, a director of the Institute. American Liberalism, and particularly religious liberals have long been in the forefront in the battle against the greatest evils of our time, and active proponents for justice in the U.S. and around the world."

To offer but one example, the birthday of the liberal Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is celebrated as a national holiday because he personified the moral center of the liberal Christian social justice tradition that led the nation to equal rights for African Americans after centuries of slavery and oppression.

"James Dobson's preposterous claim that liberals do not know the difference between right and wrong says much more about James Dobson than it does about liberals," said Stephen Rockwell Director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity.

"Dobson claims to be a follower of Jesus, but his calumny and his reckless coarsening and polarization of public discourse sounds much more like the Pharisees than Jesus Christ. Dobson owes liberals and all Americans a heartfelt and public apology," he said.

IPC challenges Dobson on the validity of the following statement on homosexuality:

DOBSON: It (homosexuality) usually comes out of very, very early childhood, and this is very controversial, but this is what I believe and many other people believe, that is has to do with an identity crisis that occurs to early to remember it, where a boy is born with an attachment to his mother and she is everything to him for about 18 months, and between 18 months and five years, he needs to detach from her and to reattach to his father.

It's a very important developmental task and if his dad is gone or abusive or disinterested or maybe there's just not a good fit there. What's he going to do? He remains bonded to his mother and

KING: Is that clinically true or is that theory?

DOBSON: No, it's clinically true, but it's controversial. What homosexual activists, especially, would like everybody to believe is that it is genetic, that they don't have any choice.

As IPC's Frank L. Cocozzelli incredulously noted " that both the American Psychological Association as well as the American Psychiatric Association have denounced its use. More importantly, the American Psychological Association back in 1975 concluded that homosexuality was not a mental disorder. In 1994, the American Psychological Association similarly stated, '...homosexuality is neither a mental illness nor a moral depravity. It is the way a portion of the population expresses human love and sexuality.'"

Finally, IPC takes issue with Dr. Dobson's serious misstatement on the separation of church and state. During the course of the interview, the following exchange took place:

KING: We have a separation of church and state.

DOBSON: Who says?

KING: You don't believe in separation of church and state?

DOBSON: Not the way you mean it. The separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. No, it's not. That is not in the Constitution. That was...

KING: It's in the Bill of Rights.

DOBSON: It's not in the Bill of Rights. It's not anywhere in a foundational document. The only place where the so-called "wall of separation" was mentioned was in a letter written by Jefferson to a friend. That's the only place. It has been picked up and made to be something it was never intended to be.__What it has become is that the government is protected from the church, instead of the other way around, which is that church was designed to be protected from the government.

Dr. Dobson's claim that there is no such thing as separation of church and state is not supported by history. While it is true that the phrase separation of church and state is not found in the constitution or the first Amendment, the concept was well understood by the leading thinkers of the time. Thomas Jefferson's's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, is considered by historians, legal scholars and the U.S. Supreme Court to be Jefferson's definitive statement on the meaning of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

As progressive Christians, IPC is steadfastly committed to the separation of church and state as stated in the Constitution of the United States. We base our belief not as an expression of hostility towards religion, but as a guarantee of its free practice whereby the position of one faith is not elevated over any other. In that manner, America will protect, as FDR proclaimed, "The freedom of every person to worship God in his own way."

The Institute for Progressive Christianity (IPC) is a research institute committed to producing work firmly rooted in scripture and the diverse Christian values represented in Progressive Christianity. Powerful arguments will be developed to recast the Christian image into one of tolerance, diversity and reason. The IPC will champion the separation of Church and State and design innovative policy proposals that embody the kind of compassion and integrity that resonates with all people of character.