Dr. James Dobson Endorses Rick Santorum

Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, spoke with Rick Santorum at the American Heartland: A Conversation on Faith, Freedom and the American Family in Columbia Missouri. Dr. Dobson has endorsed Rick Santorum for President.

Dobson Launching New Radio Program

From OneNewsNow

Dr. James Dobson will be back on the radio next week, but not on the Focus on the Family broadcast he hosted for decades.

Starting Monday, Dobson will host Family Talk, a ministry he launched after leaving Focus on the Family in February. He says it will be carried on about 200 radio stations, compared to the thousands of stations that broadcast his former program.

The Focus board had asked Dobson to step aside, but the 74-year-old evangelical says he also felt "God's hand" at his back, pushing him to leave so the ministry he founded in 1977 wouldn't die with him.

On his last broadcast in February, Dobson said his new show wouldn't compete with Focus on the Family, noting that Focus agreed to donate $1 million to help get it started.

[Editor's Note: Among the networks carrying Dr. Dobson's new radio program will be American Family Radio, a ministry of the American Family Association. It will air daily beginning Monday, May 3 on AFR's Talk network at 6:30 a.m. Central, and on AFR's Inspirational network at 9:30 a.m. Central, and can be heard online.]

End of an Era: James Dobson Departs Focus on the Family

From LifeSiteNews
By Peter J. Smith

After 33 years at Focus on the Family, psychologist Dr. James Dobson bids farewell on Friday to the Christian ministry he founded, and brings his radio presence at the organization to an end. But the famous Christian commentator is not finished with the airwaves, as he has announced plans for a new, independent radio ministry following his departure.

Focus on the Family CEO and President Jim Daly told listeners of Focus on the Family’s radio program Wednesday that "this week marks the completion of a transition period that probably started more than 10 years ago."

Dobson stated that his intention in stepping down was to give responsibility to the younger generation, and ensure FOTF's future success by not inadvertently leaving it leaderless. Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink reports that Dobson, 73, will join Daly on the radio program later in the week “to discuss memories, his future and Focus on the Family's future.”

For decades, friends and foes have known Dobson - a signer of the recent Manhattan Declaration - as an outspoken champion of the right to life for the unborn, and tireless defender of the family and the institution of marriage.

Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program brought in an estimated 1.5 million listeners in the United States and over 220 million followers across the globe. There, Dobson made his voice a clarion call to pro-life and pro-family action through political involvement no less than prayer and ministry.

“If people of faith - the so-called values voters - don’t come out and let their voices be heard, there are going to be some major implications for this country,” Dobson warned his listeners in October 2006.

Dobson had no qualms about calling the recent federal “hate crimes” legislation “utter evil” coming out of Congress, and warned that normalizing same-sex unions was a necessary component of homosexualists’ strategy to make homosexuality acceptable among the youth.

On Terri Schiavo, the Christian psychologist denounced her court-ordered starvation and dehydration as "one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in American history."

Dobson took particular aim at the "heady abuse of power that is all too common among independent fiefdoms known as judges," when a federal court struck down obscenity laws as unconstitutional. He quoted as prescient Thomas Jefferson’s warning that entrusting the arbitration of “all constitutional questions” to judges was an idea that “would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

Dobson was also keenly aware of the need for a new generation of pro-life Christian leaders, and challenged the youth to rise up and courageously accept the mantle of his own generation of leadership.

“Who will defend the unborn child in the years to come? Who will plead for the Terri Schiavos of the world? Who's going to fight for the institution of marriage, which is on the ropes today?" Dobson questioned to the National Religious Broadcasters conference in March 2008.

Amid Dobson's transition from Focus, speculation remains on the fate of the organization he founded, and what new direction it may take without his influence.

A Wall Street Journal interview with Focus CEO Jim Daly in early February indicated that the Christian ministry may take a softer approach to controversial life and family issues than Dobson.

“I don’t see evil behind everything,” said Daly. The Journal reported the CEO did not care for Dobson’s strident attacks on political leaders such as President Obama. While Dobson called Obama’s ideas “fruitcake,” the Journal said Daly preferred to praise the President for having a White House event on fatherhood.

Additionally, Daly told the Journal that while he and Focus remains dedicated to ending abortion once and for all, they will likely not spend much energy working for a ban, but instead devote more resources to promoting abortion alternatives such as adoption.

However, Tom Minnery, a senior vice president at Focus on the Family, assured on CitizenLink that Focus on the Family will remain true to the guiding lights that Dobson imbued in their ministry.

"The pillars will remain the same," he said. "Our devotion to our cause of the family, our devotion to the notion that life is sacred, to the notion that marriage is one man and one woman, those will never change."

For Dobson, the end brings a new beginning: in December, he announced his plan to host a new 30-minute daily radio program with his son Ryan, called "James Dobson on the Family." The show is expected to tackle issues including “marriage, child-rearing, family finances, medical and psychological concerns, national issues, the sanctity of human life, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Dobson wrote that he did not feel he could simply live a quiet retired life with his wife Shirley while “our nation is facing a crisis that threatens its very existence.”

“We are in a moral decline of shocking dimensions. I have asked myself how I can I sit and watch the world go by without trying to help if I can,” Dobson stated. “That is what motivates me at this time.”

The program is set to debut May 3.

Focus on the Family's Dobson on Hate Crimes Bill: "Utter Evil" Coming out of Congress

From LifeSiteNews
By Alex Bush

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, stated on his daily radio program, Focus on the Family Daily, that "utter evil" is coming out of the United States Congress. He made the remark in reference to the recently passed Hate Crimes Bill, H.R.1913, which makes "sexual orientation," as well as race, religion, class, gender or disability, categories that are protected from "hate crimes."

Bill H.R.1913 has been criticized by conservative commentators, who say that it could be used to prosecute religious leaders who simply defend traditional moral views on sexuality. Critics have also charged that the bill is redundant, since violent crimes are already punishable by law, and that the bill, by protecting special classes from "hate," effectively criminalizes thoughts rather than criminal actions.

Dobson was joined on his radio show by Congressmen Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Steve King, R-Iowa.

"Every case they bring up would not be affected one iota, not one bit, by this hate crimes legislation," Gohmert said, "What this bill does is, it starts saying [that] some classes, some types of people, are more important to protect than others. That divides America, it's un-American."

Bill H.R.1913 states that whoever "attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person" commits a hate crime.

Advocates of the bill, however, have responded to religious critics, pointing out that it includes a clause, in Section 10.4, saying that, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual's expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual's membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs."

In addition, it states that if one is charged with a hate crime under H.R.1913, "evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial." But Gohmert emphasizes the importance of the next line of the bill: "unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense."

According to Gohmert, if a religious leader teaches "that homosexuality is wrong and someone goes out and commits a crime of violence then [the religious leader] can be arrested for inducing that person to do it and under existing Federal Law you are as guilty as the one who committed the act of violence."

Dobson then quipped in response, "So much for the 1st amendment."

Dobson also expressed his concern that, "The broad definition [of sexual orientation] could mean anything including the 30 forms of sexual deviancy that are listed by the American Psychiatric Association."

Currently the term "sexual orientation" is not defined in the hate crimes bill, and is only defined in one law in the books, a law that is not referenced in the bill. Gohmert said that when a judge is trying to figure out how to define a term that is not defined in the law and does not reference another law, the judge gives the term the plain meaning.

"Some judge is going to finally say, 'Sexual orientation' means exactly what the words say: it is whatever you are oriented toward sexually."

Congressman King, in attempting to pre-empt this catch-all definition of "sexual orientation," proposed an amendment that would prevent pedophiles from being protected under H.R.1913. Pedophilia is one of the "sexual orientations" listed by the American Psychiatry Association. The amendment, however, was rejected. "We have a record roll-call vote that shows every Democrat on the judiciary committee voting to have pedophiles protected under sexual orientation," said King.

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, stated in April, after H.R.1913 passed through Committee but before being passed to the Senate for review, that the hate crimes bill is simply redundant, since "such acts [of violence] are already crimes under state law. What converts the acts targeted by this bill into a federal offense are the thoughts or opinions of the perpetrator alone."

H.R.1913 has passed through the House of Representatives and has been introduced to the Senate as bill S.909.

Dobson Accuses Obama of 'Distorting' Bible

By Eric Gorski
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)

As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution.

The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization's headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family.

The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.

"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?" Obama said. "Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.

"... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

Joshua DuBois, director of religious affairs for Obama's campaign, said in a statement that a full reading of Obama's speech shows he is committed to reaching out to people of faith and standing up for families. "Obama is proud to have the support of millions of Americans of faith and looks forward to working across religious lines to bring our country together," DuBois said.

Dobson reserved some of his harshest criticism for Obama's argument that the religiously motivated must frame debates over issues like abortion not just in their own religion's terms but in arguments accessible to all people.

He said Obama, who supports abortion rights, is trying to govern by the "lowest common denominator of morality," labeling it "a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."

"Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?" Dobson said. "What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe."

The program was paid for by a Focus on the Family affiliate whose donations are taxed, Dobson said, so it's legal for that group to get more involved in politics.

Last week, DuBois, a former Assemblies of God associate minister, called Minnery for what Minnery described as a cordial discussion. He would not go into detail, but said Dubois offered to visit the ministry in August when the Democratic National Convention is in Denver.

A possible Obama visit was not discussed, but Focus is open to one, Minnery said.

McCain also has not met with Dobson. A McCain campaign staffer offered Dobson a meeting with McCain recently in Denver, Minnery said. Dobson declined because he prefers that candidates visit the Focus on the Family campus to learn more about the organization, Minnery said.

Dobson has not backed off his statement that he could not in good conscience vote for McCain because of concerns over the Arizona senator's conservative credentials. Dobson has said he will vote in November but has suggested he might not vote for president.

Obama recently met in Chicago with religious leaders, including conservative evangelicals. His campaign also plans thousands of "American Values House Parties," where participants discuss Obama and religion, as well as a presence on Christian radio and blogs.

Divided We Stand

Unable to unite behind a GOP candidate, religious right

leaders face a wilderness road to the White House

From WORLD Magazine

By Warren Cole Smith

Last month at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, several dozen leaders of the "Christian right" met to strategize next steps—but the meeting inevitably included discussion of missteps in the GOP presidential campaign. Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an early supporter of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chided the group for cold-shouldering his candidate until it was too late. Others, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, disagreed. The meeting quickly threatened to dissolve into accusations, rebuttals, and recriminations.

Then, venerable Paul Weyrich — a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Council for National Policy (CNP) — raised his hand to speak. Weyrich is a man whose mortality is plain to see. A freak accident several years ago left him with a spinal injury, which ultimately led to both his legs being amputated in 2005. He now gets around in a motorized wheelchair. He is visibly paler and grayer than he was just a few years ago, a fact not lost on many of his friends in the room, some of whom had fought in the political trenches with him since the 1960s.

The room — which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations — became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.

Why were the leaders of Christian conservatives divided and ultimately ineffective in the 2008 campaign?

The story may have begun a year ago when Newt Gingrich appeared on Focus on the Family's national radio broadcast on March 16, 2007. During the broadcast, Gingrich confessed past sins and Focus founder and host James Dobson declared, "I cannot under any circumstances support John McCain." Many thought that Gingrich would be Dobson's candidate, but those who had been disappointed by Gingrich's ineffectiveness as speaker of the House, or by his extramarital dalliance, withheld their backing.

That same day Sen. John McCain pulled in a disappointing $150,000 at a luncheon fundraiser across the country at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte. He was polling in single digits, behind Gov. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, even behind former Sen. Fred Thompson, who had not declared his candidacy. At an after-lunch press conference, McCain took a reporter's question about Gingrich's performance on the Focus broadcast with an icy stare: "First of all, let me say that I'm a believer in redemption."

For McCain, political redemption was a year away. Gingrich failed to rally support from those who knew him best, and some conservative leaders turned instead to Romney, who had long courted them. In 2006, Christian public-relations guru and Romney backer Mark DeMoss had his candidate meet with about 15 conservative activists. In a gesture that — like much of Romney's campaign — was both opulent and desperate, Romney sent everyone in attendance an expensive office chair, along with a note that read, "You'll always have a seat at our table."

Despite the largesse, Romney gained only a footstool at the Christian conservative table, whose leadership increasingly was troubled over his flip-flops on gay civil unions and abortion. On Sept. 29, 2007, he spoke at a CNP meeting in Salt Lake City. The next day he met with Dobson, Perkins, and about 40 other leaders. Conservative talk show host Rick Scarborough told WORLD the verdict: Romney as governor of Massachusetts "just a few short years ago . . . fought against everything we're fighting for." He would not win the group's backing.

So, with Gingrich not in the running, and Romney a "no," Thompson's leisurely campaign and Ron Paul's iconoclastic one did not impress many Republicans. Giuliani's pro-abortion stance alienated most. The candidate who continued to draw support from grassroots folks: Huckabee.

"The other candidates come to you," Huckabee told 2,000 Christian conservatives at the Washington, D.C., Value Voters Summit in October 2007. "I come from you."

That line generated one of more than a dozen standing ovations during Huckabee's 20-minute address, and he gained most of their votes in a straw poll of those present.

But Huckabee could not gain traction among the religious right leaders who could have generated the financial backing he needed to run a national campaign. In October, as well, he met with a group of conservative Christian leaders — most drawn from the ranks of the CNP gatherings — who say they were "vetting" the candidates. Most didn't like Huckabee's positions on immigration and tax reform. Others thought him insufficiently ardent in criticizing Islamic extremism and abortion. Members of the group believed that Huckabee was "their guy" from a religious perspective but said he was not quite ready for "prime time."

But no other candidates thrilled the leaders, either, so Huckabee was the one candidate they invited back for what one leader called a "do-over." He did much better the second time, yet the group remained too divided about his winning potential to agree to endorse him. When he won a stunning victory in Iowa, he didn't have the resources to take advantage of that upset in the primaries that immediately followed. McCain beat Romney in New Hampshire, and the Arizona senator soon became the unexpected front-runner.

On Jan. 22, just days after the South Carolina primary, Fred Thompson dropped out of the race. The next day, American Values president Gary Bauer wrote the 100,000 supporters on his email list: "Fred Thompson — sadly, in my view — dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race yesterday. He was the one candidate who understood Reagan conservatism and who appealed to all three segments of the Reagan coalition — social conservatives, economic conservatives and defense conservatives."

Thompson's departure should have helped Huckabee, but Huckabee himself had finished a disappointing second in South Carolina — to McCain. When Giuliani failed to win Florida on Jan. 29, a state in which he had spent much of his time and money, he withdrew — and McCain got most of Giuliani's supporters.

On Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, McCain won nine states to Romney's seven and Huckabee's five. McCain took 601 of the delegates to Romney's 201 and Huckabee's 152. When it was too late for Huckabee, Dobson endorsed him, but by then McCain had the endorsement of inevitability. On March 4, nearly a year after Dobson had said he would not vote for McCain, McCain won the Texas primary and enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination.

Three days later the CNP met again, this time in New Orleans. McCain, trying to stroke conservatives, took the stage with a hand-held microphone. He received applause when he praised Huckabee, when he said, "We've let spending get out of control," when he said, "Radical Islamic extremism is evil. It's evil," and when he said, "As for the rights of the unborn: The noblest words written are the words 'inalienable rights.' That means the right to life."

When asked about his own faith in God, though, McCain launched into the story he has told often about a prison guard in North Vietnam who showed him compassion and once, in the prison yard, drew the sign of the cross in the dirt at McCain's feet, then quickly brushed it away. The story received polite applause. Later Family Research Council head Tony Perkins told WORLD, "He had a golden opportunity to talk about his faith. Instead, he talked about the faith of his guard. It was a great story, but not what we were looking for." Bill Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, was more direct: "It was a disaster. It just proves he has no clue what we're about."

But Phil Burress, who by championing a marriage amendment in Ohio in 2004 became instrumental in winning Ohio — and reelection — for George W. Bush, was among the last to speak before the New Orleans meeting broke up. Burress had been a part of the "vetting process" in Washington where the leaders reviewed and dismissed the GOP candidates early on.

With the election now just over six months away, he told the New Orleans gathering, "McCain wasn't my first choice, and I'm not sure about him now, but we've got a zero chance of getting a conservative Supreme Court justice out of either Clinton or Obama. I don't know whether we've got a 25 percent chance, or a 50 percent chance, or a 100 percent chance with McCain — but it's better than zero, and I'm going to do everything in my power to help get him elected. He's our best shot."

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13894

Dr. Dobson Endorses Mike Huckabee

Dr. James Dobson issues the following statement tonight, speaking as a private citizen.

I am endorsing Gov. Mike Huckabee for President of the United States today. My decision comes in the wake of my statement on Super Tuesday that I could not vote for Sen. John McCain, even if he goes on to win the Republican nomination. His record on the institution of the family and other conservative issues makes his candidacy a matter of conscience and concern for me.

That left two pro-family candidates whom I could support, but I was reluctant to choose between them. However, the decision by Gov. Mitt Romney to put his campaign "on hold" changes the political landscape. The remaining candidate for whom I could vote is Gov. Huckabee. His unwavering positions on the social issues, notably the institution of marriage, the importance of faith and the sanctity of human life, resonate deeply with me and with many others. That is why I will support Gov. Huckabee through the remaining primaries, and will vote for him in the general election if he should get the nomination. Obviously, the governor faces an uphill struggle, given the delegates already committed to Sen. McCain. Nevertheless, I believe he is our best remaining choice for President of the United States.

(NOTE: Dr. Dobson made these statements as a private citizen. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a reflection of the opinions of Focus on the Family or Focus on the Family Action.)

A Sin Not to Vote for the Godly Man

Dr. James Dobson:

"If you can find a politician who understands the institution of the family, who wants to protect children from immorality, who understands that we are at war with those who want to destroy us, and who understands that liberal judges are undermining us and need to be reined in...and if you can find a politician who lives by a strong moral code and believes in Jesus Christ ... if you can find such a person, it would be a sin not to vote for him."

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2008/02/is_not_voting_a.html

And thus a sin not to vote for (or endorse) Gov. Mike Huckabee?

Or if not, on which standard mentioned above does Huckabee fail the test?