James Dobson, a hugely influential evangelical Christian media personality and author who rallied against LGBTIQA+ people and promoted conversion therapy practices, has died aged 89.
Dobson was the founder of Focus on the Family (FOF) and the Family Research Council (FRC) to groups in the USA who actively campaigned against LGBTIQA+ rights and acceptance.
As part of his work he broadcast the daily Focus on the Family radio program that was syndicated around the world and estimated to have aa listenership of over 220 million people.
Dobson was an advocate for what he described as “family values” and argued the heterosexual marriage was the cornerstone of civilisation and as such needed to be protected from feminism and gay rights.
Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977, after a career as a Christian Psychologist. By the 1990s it had grown to be a multi-media business with multiple radio programs, magazines, video productions and a fax prayer service.
In 1979 when President Jimmy Carter organised a family conference at The White House he asked for a diversity of families to be included. Dobson argued that the only model of a family should be a heterosexual married couple, where the man is the ‘bread winner’ and the wife is a stay-at-home ‘homemaker’.
In the late 1990’s his organisation created Love Won Out, a program that promoted conversion therapy practices. He stepped down from his roles with the organisations in 2009 but continued to lobby politicians in support of his views.
In his radio broadcasts Dobson had attributed mass shootings in the USA as being a punishment from God for allowing homosexual activity. He also became a regular contributor to the Fox News channel.
