First things first, I consider myself a Unitarian Universalist, which pretty much means I am a spiritual free agent who doesn’t give a shit what you believe as long as you aren’t hurting anyone.

James Dobson failed miserably on that “aren’t hurting anyone” part. You might have heard that Dobson died this week. He probably imagined he was going to land a prime position in the afterlife as Heaven’s Director of Angels or some shit. If there are such things awaiting us when we leave this mortal coil, based on how we lived our lives, I imagine Jimbo will find himself somewhere a lot warmer.

This is due to a life focused on harming people he hated. In fact, his career began based on hurting others. After being one of the worst things ever to come out of Louisiana, born in Shreveport, he was, believe it or not, on the faculty of the University of Southern California, holding the position of clinical professor of pediatrics at the USC School of Medicine. This might seem incredibly unbelievable, given the fact that Dobson was an insane right-wing Christian nationalist, but no, he actually was a college professor at USC.

This idea starts to make more sense when you find out that during this time, he promoted beating kids. In fact, he even used how he beat his pet dachshund as an example of how pounding on kids gets them to do what you want. Sort of an abuse mixed grill, pet beating AND child beating. He wrote multiple books about wailing on children when they misbehave, no doubt inspiring countless instances of child abuse.

He moved from child and animal abuse to politics when he formed one of the most hateful organizations on Earth in 1981, the Family Research Council. The FRC basically spent the Reagan years as Ronnie’s Ministry of Misogyny, Homophobia, Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Islamophobia. The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled it a hate group, which is exactly what it is.

Don’t think I forgot about Dobson’s other little project, Focus on the Family. Perhaps more than the FRC, Focus on the Family pushed the GOP to the right on social issues, calling gay people pedophiles, declaring that all wives should be slaves to their husbands, and continuing the work to move the country closer to where we are right now, a white Christian nationalist country ruled by the right-wing. He also founded organizations such as the  Family Policy Alliance, which led a group of regional Family Policy Councils. These were lobbying groups that enabled his shitty ideals to gain more political traction.

Dobson was hateful to the point of insanity. He bailed on Focus on the Family in 2009 because he thought they were too soft and formed the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute in 2010, which produced his daily festival of hate radio show, Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. 

The man said some deranged things. He believed SpongeBob SquarePants was secretly designed to make kids gay. He said the following about marriage:

The natural sex appeal of girls serves as their primary source of bargaining power in the game of life. In exchange for feminine affection and love, a man accepts a girl as his lifetime responsibility-supplying her needs and caring for her welfare. This sexual aspect of the marital agreement can hardly be denied.

Yes, he said that marriage is how a woman offers sex in exchange for protection.

He demanded the ouster of Richard Cizik from his position at the National Association of Evangelicals because Cizik had taken a stance urging evangelicals to take global warming seriously in 2007. After Obama’s 2008 election win, he said that he would carry out infanticide and force women to carry out millions of abortions. He really seemed to hate Obama. Gosh, wonder why?

Unfortunately, Dobson’s hellspawn son is continuing his evil work. But a lot of the damage has already been done. He was a big part in driving the Republican Party towards its current status as an authoritarian, anti-democratic, fetid pit of hate. He was a big reason why the road to Trump pretty much began in earnest during the Reagan years. He wasn’t a MAGA man at first, preferring Ted Cruz for the insane reason that he thought maybe Trump wouldn’t be awful enough. When Trump put that silly thought to rest, he jumped into the world of Trump with both feet.

Dobson made the world much worse than it would have been had he never been born, sort of the anti-George Bailey of It’s a Wonderful Life fame. Evil should never be mourned when it goes away.

The last word goes to Bob Dylan.