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S O U T H E R N VOICE
OCTOBER 21/1993
a lesbian organization promoting
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FOUR HORSEMEN: Dobson
Continued from page 11
scy,” a dramatic broadcast for children, airs on
more than 1,000 stations a week. “Family News
in Focus" is heard on more than 800 stations
each week. A Spanish language broadcast,
“Enfoquc a la Fain ilia,” airs on nearly 500 sta
tions. And an Armed Forces Radio Network
broadcast is heard around the world on military
bases and ships at sea.
(Focus on the Family programming is broad
cast on 51 stations in Georgia, including 10 in
the metro Atlanta area).
In addition to stations in the United States,
Dobson’s programs arc broadcast in the United
Kingdom, Canada. Norway, South Africa, Zim
babwe, Australia, New Zealand and Russia, giv
ing the ministry an international reach.
Bui radio is not the only medium Dobson
uses with great success. Focus on the Family
publishes seven full color, glossy magazines—
Focus on the Family, with 2 million household
subscriptions monthly; Citizen, with nearly
300,0(X) monthly subscribers; Physician, going
to 17,(XX) doctors bimonthly; Clubhouse and
Clubhouse Jr. for children, going to 92,000 and
74,000 households monthly, respectively; Brio
for teenage girls, 120,000 monthly; Breakaway,
for teenage boys, 79,000 monthly; and the new
est addition to Dobson’s publishing gallery,
Teachers in Focus, sent out to 24,000 educators
each month.
His magazines are chic, hip, informative and
attractive. The magazines for children offer
games, articles about Christian performing art
ists, Christian athletes and Christian values. The
adult versions offer commentary on world and
national issues, with, of course, that ever-present
Christian supremacist slant. Physician helps doc
tors keep the “Judeo-Christian” ethic in mind as
they heal their patients, and Teachers in Focus
offers Lips on slipping religion into the daily
class routine.
And then there’s Parental Guidance, a four
page newsletter that provides parents with movie,
record and television reviews.
But that’s not all. Dobson’s empire includes
book publishing (Dobson himself has authored
12 books), films and videos (how about “Sex,
Lies...and Truth,” which purports to tell teens
the “truth” about safe sex?), a church bulletin,
basketball camps for sons of single mothers and
a host of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which offer
free pregnancy screening—and a free view of
the anti-abortion film “The Silent Scretim”—
across the country (In Georgia, Focus on the
Family operates centers in Douglasvillc and
Jonesboro and a shelter in Conyers).
Dobson himself rarely participates in the kind
of rhetoric that has drawn liberal ire upon his
spiritual brethren. His broadcasts, and his ar
ticles and books, contain gentle, almost folksy
chat about issues relating to childrearing. He
leaves the really nasty stuff to men like Wildmon
and Randall Terr)', leader of the anti-abortion
group Operation Rescue, both of whom regu
larly appear on Dobson’s broadcasts to espouse
their extremist views.
The same holds true for Dobson’s maga
zines. Last year, Citizen promoted Gene
Antonio’s “The AIDS Cover-Up,” a book blasted
by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop for
providing massive disinformation about how
AIDS is spread. And Lhe July 9, 1993 issue of
the magazine promotes, and carries an excerpt
from, Maj. Melissa Wells-Perry’s “Exclusion;
Homosexuals and the Right to Serve,” an anti
gay propaganda book used by Congress to argue
against lifting the military’s ban on lesbians and
gay men.
But, claims Dobson, Focus on the Family is
not a political organization. To bolster that claim,
it recently severed official ties with the Family
Research Council, a conservative Washington-
based think tank headed by former Reagan staffer
Gary Bauer. But, family being family, Dobson
is on the board of the council, and Bauer is
slated to join the board of Dobson’s group later
this year.
In 1991, Dobson uprooted Focus on the Fam
ily from California and crossed the desert to
Colorado Springs, which has become home to
about 50 other religious right organizations. The
move came just in time to allow Dobson to help
out with Amendment 2, the anti-gay/lesbian
rights initiative passed by Colorado’s voters.
Focus on the Family insists that it didn’t tell
its radio listeners how to vote on the issue, and
Dobson did only one program on the amend
ment, an interview with Will Perkins, head of
the group pushing the amendment, Colorado for
Family Values. But Dobson’s organization pro
vided more than $8,000 in “in-kind” contribu
tions toward the anti-gay effort, and other Dob
son programs, while not directly addressing the
amendment, provided “news” about the effort
and others across the country, as well as infor
mation about the efforts of lesbians and gays to
institute their “gay agenda.”
Like Jerry Falwell, Dobson has often been
an advisor to those in power—but unlike Falwell,
Dobson has more often been in position to dis
pense policy. He served on then-Attomey Gen
eral Edwin Mccsc’s infamous Commission on
Pornography in 1985; on Ronald Reagan’s Na
tional Advisory Commission to the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
from 1982-84; and on Health and Human Ser
vices Secretary Otis Bowen’s Panel on Teen
Pregnancy Prevention in 1987. He regularly con
sulted with Reagan and George Bush on family
matters and served as chairman of the United
Stales Army's Family Initiative from 1986-88.
He’s everywhere. He’s quiet. He’s effective.
“Dobson is sort of like the slcalLh leader."
saitl Anhur Kropp, president of People for the
American Way, which recently released a de
tailed report on Focus on the Family’s activities.
“He probably has more impact in the public
education aspect—the promotion of the religious
right—than anybody because he is so popular. I
think he is the No. 3 radio personality in the
country, and Focus on the Family rivals (Pat)
Robertson in terms of size and money."
“People don’t think of him as political be
cause he tends to focus on child psychology. But
he’s been involved in everything from attacking
school curriculums to supporting the military
ban to [attacking] the NEA."
And recently, Focus on the Family has be
gun promoting stale coalitions and community
seminars designed to strengthen the conserva
tive movement.
In Alabama, for example, the Alabama Fam
ily Alliance, sponsored by Focus on the Family,
is actively working to force Alabama schools to
promote abstinence in sex education. Organiz
ers quickly learned from Dobson and his staff to
avoid couching their message in religious
terms—after a 1991 defeat, the Alabama alli
ance reframed its bill as a health issue and won a
sweeping victory in the state legislature.
For Dobson, it’s all about the family—
strengthen the family, support the family. He
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