One Time Magazine Column by James Dobson is One Too Many

By Christine Cupaiuolo — December 18, 2006

Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson stands accused of misrepresenting the research of Carol Gilligan and Dr. Kyle Pruett, who were both cited in Dobson’s recent Time magazine guest column arguing against same-sex parenting, “Two Mommies Is One Too Many.”

Media Matters has a good breakdown of Dobson’s cherry-picked assertions and the response from Giligan and Pruett, the latter of whom has asked Dobson to refrain from quoting from his research in “media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.”

Dobson began his column by noting that he and other social conservatives were asked to respond to the news that Mary Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant and will raise the child with her partner, Heather Poe.

To which I have to ask: Why? What does Dobson have to say that we haven’t already heard before?

Was it enlightening for any Time reader to learn that Dobson believes “birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples”?

Or that “traditional marriage is God’s design for the family and is rooted in biblical truth”?

Dobson writes near the top that implicit to the invitation to comment on Mary Cheney “is an effort to get us to criticize the Bush Administration or the Cheney family,” and he uses that as cover for writing a supposedly non-political response “about what kind of family environment is best for the health and development of children, and, by extension, the nation at large.”

But Dobson’s views on the best family environment are nothing but political — and pathetically over-played. The fact that he’s misrepresenting research to suit his politics is the only newsworthy item. Maybe Time will invite commentary about his truthiness.

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