On November 22, 2006, the founder and president of Focus on the Family appeared on CNN's Larry King Live. During the course of the interview, Dobson made a number of highly inaccurate statements on matters including faith, sexuality, liberalism and the United States Constitution. It was the same old tired tale of how Liberals are immoral; how they don't believe in right and wrong; how we are all practice "moral relativism" It was rhetoric that many of us have become all too accustomed to hearing from the Religious Right, but almost never gets adequately addressed, let alone refuted.
Outraged at such mendaciousness, Talk to Action's Fred Clarkson challenged his fellow liberals to wake up and respond. So, after discussing the matter, IPC's directors decided to do just that.
On November 29, 2006 the Institute issued a press release that debunked Dobson's three main claims. More than that, we backed up our statement with a talking points memo that provided historical authority for what we said.
I have heard some Liberals write off Dobson's statements as harmless or as appealing only to a given base. We disagree. The problem with not responding to such blatant falsehoods is that they have a nasty way of evolving from being seemingly harmless blather into widely accepted truths. Urban legend sets in and as the false claim grows in stature it becomes increasingly difficult to refute its underlying mendacity. It is pretty much how the right wing punditry operates. In fact their whole movement depends upon self-perpetrating myths.
Now Rush Limbaugh has entered the fray. He incorrectly claims that IPC is a creation of the Democratic Party. Furthermore, as Limbaugh falsely claims, we do not believe "...that religious people have no business being in government." In fact, we believe quite the opposite. And finally, IPC's "express purpose" is not "to bash Christians." Instead, we exist to give voice to the millions of mainstream Christians who do not wish to impose their own specific set of beliefs upon their neighbors but who instead express their spirituality through their everyday actions.
Limbaugh's intent, with his many false assertions, is not designed to enhance the debate, but to shift the focus away from Dobson's own unsustainable claims. Let Rush attack us all he wants; we can take it. After all we are Christians in the tradition of Reinhold Niebuhr.
Dobson's sending Limbaugh to fight his battles is a clear signal that the Focus on the Family founder has little or no confidence in being able to defend his own kooky assertions. After making an indefensible comment about the separation of church and state, Dobson now hides behind Rush's usual obfuscations. Instead of having the courage to debate on neutral ground, he sent talk radio's ultimate bully to try and divert attention away from the orginal issue. Well it won't work: While this should not become about going toe-to-toe with Rush; it is quickly becoming about Dobson's unwillingness to defend his own statements.
But since Limbaugh wants us to give substance to our remarks, we will do so--again. And we will start with Dobson's often-repeated claim the Liberals practice moral relativism and say "....there is no moral and immoral, there is no right or wrong."
Such blather is nothing short of McCarthyism. American Liberalism has long been at the forefront in the battle against evil. FDR, an avowed Liberal led our nation through the Great Depression of the 1930s, created Social Security and presided over the American victory against Nazism as well as fascist thugs such as Benito Mussolini and Hidecki Tojo.
President Harry S. Truman, another self-identified Liberal desegregated the US Military, stood up to Stalinism and saved Western Europe from the jackboot of Communism through implementation of the Marshall Plan. President Lyndon Johnson gave us Medicare as part of the Great Society while Robert F. Kennedy always reminded us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and privileges on one hand and contribution to the common good on the other.
History also teaches us that Monsignor John A. Ryan, the originator of both the minimum and living wage as well as being a member of the ACLU was also a confident of FDR on economic matters. The aforementioned Reinhold Niebuhr was a religious philosopher who has inspired many Liberal minds, including that of Martin Luther King, Jr. With that said, it preposterous for Dobson to even suggest the Liberalism is bereft of any notion of right and wrong.
The mainstream Left embraces Value Pluralism, a concept that understands that all religions of good will share certain basic definitions of good and evil that transcend the particulars of each denomination. This, and not the subjectively held truths of any one faith is the basis of a commonly held American morality. Along with my fellow IPC Directors I believe that the true moral relativists and nihilists are more likely to be found within the ranks of the Religious Right's neoconservative supporters. And they mislabel Liberals as "moral relativists" and as "nihilists" to draw attention away from their own failures to address the pursuit of unrestrained economic self-interest.
Limbaugh also challenged IPC to back up our claim that Dobson was wrong in saying that the Founders never intended there to be to a separation of church and state. We further take up the Right-wing's chief discombobulator up on his offer.
While it is true that the phrase separation of church and state is not found in the constitution or the first Amendment, the phrase was in wide use among leading thinkers at the time, among them was Thomas Jefferson Who once stated, "Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion." Benjamin Franklin expressed similar beliefs. More than one hundred years earlier Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island stated, "Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils." And it is not religious freedom, but "forced worship" that Dobson and much of the Religious Right is truly after.
There is still yet more proof for our assertion. Among these:
*The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by Founding Father President John Adams and unanimously approved by the Senate in 1797, stated, "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
*Article VI of the Constitution states, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
*In Federalist No. 10, James Madison warns how faction can "...kindle (their) unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts." Madison also describes how "A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction..."
*In Federalist No. 52, Madison reminds us that our Constitution has no religious qualification for public office in that, "...the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description... and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith."
And Madison further strengthens the case that a separation of church and state was clearly intended. He wisely asked, "Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
Madison was correctly concerned about factious groups whose self-interest, as historian Garry Wills observed, invades both the rights of others as well as "the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Dobson's particular vision of Christianity not only invades the rights of non-Christians but also those of Christians who do not share his subjective dogmas or interpretations of Scripture.
And among the different interpretations of Scripture is that concerning homosexuality. I have read Leviticus and I am not convinced--unlike Dobson--that it speaks to all homosexual behavior. For me, Dobson’s reading of this Scripture seems more indicative of forbidding ritual sex or meant to be read in light of then-contemporary standards of manhood. Curiously, there appears no condemnation of lesbianism. And when applying stance (the juxtaposition of the experience of contemporary times upon a reading of Scripture) it seems to be an outmoded prohibition, much like Leviticus' admonishment against tattoos, men shaving their beards or wearing garments of two different threads. And even for those of us at IPC who theologically agree with Dobson’s reading of Leviticus concerning this issue, agree that one’s homosexual orientation should not be a basis for denying certain rights that are available to their heterosexual brethren.
But in closing, I return to Rush Limbaugh's closing comments. Of particular interest was his claim that he and those of similar political thought, "...believe in the power of positive delusion." Based on past and current behavior, we can't argue with that assertion.
But the corker was when he stated, "Sometimes you have to rise above your principles." He then spoke of creating a new group with some of "...his renowned conservative colleagues" to counter IPC. The Great Dissembler said, "It would be the Americans for Creative Reality. We'd just make it up, make up our own reality, counter the libs and deal with them on that level."
Well Rush, both you and Dobson have been doing just that for years on end. And it was exactly for that very reason we decided to speak out and set the record straight.