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Ärende: Dobson steps in it again
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Typical fundy "good Christian," Dobson even lies about the research he
uses.
Mass Media Bunk is a commentary on articles in the mass media that
provide false, misleading, or deceptive information regarding scientific
matters or alleged paranormal or supernatural events.
Robert Todd Carroll
©copyright 2006
SkepDic.com
One Daddy Too Many
December 13, 2006. James C. Dobson's op-ed piece on Mary Cheney's
pregnancy in the current issue of Time reveals his ignorance on a number
of counts and says nothing that would indicate he knows enough about
parenting to be the head of an organization called Focus on the Family.
The motto of that organization is "Nurturing and Defending Families
Worldwide." Dobson is clear that the only family he will defend is the
one with a daddy, a mommy, and kids. Some of those families are quite
nice. The daddy doesn't abuse the mommy and the kids aren't whacked by
the parents on a regular basis. The parents spend a lot of time with
their children as they are growing up. They nurture them, teach them
important values, and love them enough to stand back when they grow up
and let them make their own way in the world. However, unless my local
newspaper editor and the managers of every television station in America
are part of a conspiracy to keep the truth from us, the fact is that
having a daddy around might be the worst thing in the world for many
mommies and kids.
What inspired Dobson to write his essay "Two Mommies is One Too Many"
was the news story that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick
Cheney, is pregnant with a child she intends to raise with her partner,
Heather Poe. Dobson's sure that the child would be better off if Ms. Poe
were replaced with a Mr. Anybody. How does he know this? Like anybody
defending the indefensible, Dobson cites scientific studies that show
how it's better to have a daddy in the home. One study is from Dr. Kyle
Pruett of Yale Medical School; another is from an unnamed article that
appeared in Psychology Today ten years ago. The bottom line? "A father,
as a male parent, makes unique contributions to the task of parenting
that a mother cannot emulate, and vice versa." Apparently, science has
shown that you need a penis to teach a child things like "justice,
fairness and duty." Penisless people can teach "sympathy, grace and
care" and "give a child a sense of hopefulness" but science has shown
that you need a penis to "provide a sense of right and wrong."
Dobson believes it is important that boys learn "maleness" and they can
only get that understanding from men, "ideally from their fathers." He
doesn't elaborate on what "maleness" is but given his other Christian
notions of how people should behave and relate to each other, we can
speculate that maleness involves dominating, protecting, and providing
for females and disciplining children in the tried and true methods of
hitting them and threatening them with eternal suffering if they don't
toe the line. Dobson might even recommend that fathers with "maleness"
imitate his hero, the god of the Old Testament, who drowned people or
otherwise caused them great torment and suffering before annihilating
them for not doing his will. A little waterboarding might be just the
right measure for a disobedient child.
If a child has two mommies the kid might grow up too hopeful or too
sympathetic. God forbid.
Dobson also thinks that his intuition is right on this issue. Children
need a mother and father, he says. No they don't. Children need loving,
caring parents who won't intimidate them with threats of eternal
damnation for themselves or their friends who don't act and think like
the parents think they should. Children would certainly benefit from
having a good mother and a good father who raise them, but they don't
need either one. A single male or female can provide a better
environment for a child than many two-parent households. It all depends
on what the parents are like, not on whether there is at least one
person with a penis and one with a vagina ruling the roost. Dobson says
that he believes that "birth and adoption are the purview of married
heterosexual couples." Yet, he would not hesitate to make it illegal for
a married heterosexual woman to get an abortion. If it were up to him,
Mary Cheney would give up her child to a married heterosexual couple.
This is the kind of "maleness" that many Christians adhere to. They
would and have taken children away from their mothers to have those
children raised as Christians. What kind of moral imbecile doesn't
recognize that it is immoral to take a child away from a mother who is
willing and able to care for her child?
I'm not saying Dobson is advocating taking Cheney's child from her. I'm
saying that he is implying that it would be better for the child if she
were to give it up for adoption to a married heterosexual couple. He has
no real argument to defend this position so he claims it is part of
"God's design" and "divine plan." He should study some other religions.
Some, with as much validity as Dobson, claim that polygamy is god's
plan. If he reads the Bible he claims has the truth in it, he'll find
all kinds of absurd notions about "maleness" and how fathers act toward
children. Anyone who thinks the Bible provides a model for good family
values is not worth listening to. Read Judges 19. The story is about an
old man who gives up his concubine to a group of men who rape her all
night so they won't sodomize him. (His host was willing to offer up his
daughter to the rapists.) The next day he slices her up with his knife
and "together with her bones, into twelve pieces ... sent her into all
the coasts of Israel."* The man is not condemned for his evil behavior.
Read Luke 14:26: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and
mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his
own life, he cannot be my disciple.* Nobody takes this literally, I
would think. But the message is clear: You must detach yourself from the
people and things you love in this world if you are to be a disciple of
Jesus. Even the most benign interpretation of this passage can't twist
it to reflect the kind of family values that many Christians like Dobson
claim their religion supports.
Dobson makes the mistake of comparing homosexuals having or adopting
children to no-fault divorce, which he notes has caused a number of
social problems. Economic and emotional differences between fatherless
or motherless homosexual families and single parent families resulting
from divorce result in many fewer social problems with the former. When
homosexual families break up, they suffer the same kinds of problems
that plague heterosexual families that break up. But to compare every
homosexual family to divorced families is unfair and irrelevant.
Dobson's last bit of ignorance displayed in this one-page essay is to
claim that Cheney and Poe are part of "another untested and far-reaching
social experiment." Where has he been for the past half century? He's
living in a biblical dream world if he thinks that his idea of the
traditional family is the "foundation on which the well-being of future
generations depends." We don't need another generation of children
taught that it is good to believe in irrational stories told by moral
busybodies who think they know what is best for the rest of us.
§
(Personal disclosure: I'm heterosexual and have been married but once
and to the same woman for 39 years. We raised two wonderful children
together, both of whom are in heterosexual marriages that appear to be
strong and loving. I suppose I should also confess that I've known a
lesbian woman who gave birth to a son about 30 years ago. I've known him
all his life and he's a wonderful young man with a great sense of right
and wrong and a wife and two children. His father turned out to be a
scumbag. None of us go to church or take the Bible as a guide to
anything.)
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