Focus on the Family
From RationalWiki
Focus on the Family is a *ahem* nonprofit evangelical Christian organization, run by James Dobson and based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It specializes in family issues approached from a fundamentalist standpoint, and strongly advocates captial corporal punishment for children. Its meddling attitude can be summed up by the bumper sticker "FOCUS ON YOUR OWN DAMN FAMILY!"
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[edit] Political advocacy
Although Focus on the Family itself is technically apolitical (in accordance with federal requirements for a tax-exempt religious organization), it has recently created a political action committee called Citizen Link, which is utterly committed to ensuring that pro-family biblical values prevail in Washington. These values literally always line up with the Republican party line, not just on standard Christian issues which have a minute biblical basis (abortion, homosexuality, divorce) but on things which have no biblical basis (health care reform, taxation, unions). Citizen Link has also been very vocal in the ENDA controversy, arguing constantly for the right of Christians to discriminate against gays and Muslims. The group has not yet become famous for its ability to find "anti-Christian discrimination" in anything that happens anywhere, but rest assured that this will happen any day now.
Although federal law would seem to require James Dobson to limit his political outbursts to Citizen Link-related media, Dobson has, on several occasions, branched out into politics on the Focus on the Family Daily Brodacasts, doing everything from asking radical Republican lawmakers what hate crime legislation is really about (outlawing disliking homosexuals, obviously) to attempting to rehabilitate Tom Delay's image. He also interviewed a converted Ted Bundy in prison about God's saving grace, ruining one of the few pluses of the Biblical god actually existing (that although unbelievers may suffer forever, at least we'll be joined in eternal damnation by Bundy and others who actually deserve such treatment).
Focus on the Family has also recently created a website called "True Tolerance," which is, of course, dedicated to intolerance, and also features some of the Alliance Defense Fund's typical idiotic free legal documents.[1] They also have crafted "Stand for Christmas," which provides shoppers with a list of which retailers are "Pro-Christmas" (the site is very useful, in as much as it tells a secularist which shops to avoid).[2]
Focus on the Family is looked on with some disdain by commercial Christian publishing houses, as it is a highly profitable enterprise operating as a nonprofit.
On an unrelated note, hearing James Dobson say "necrophilia" is literally the funniest thing ever.
[edit] External links
- Their website
- Respect My Research: Website established by Truth Wins Out (TWO) that seeks to call attention to Focus on the Family's skewing, misrepresenting or just outright lying about scientific research to fit its homophobic positions.
