I don’t mean to belabor this point, but James Dobson’s explanation for equating stem-cell research with Nazism is not only blatantly dishonest, it’s also incoherent. What’s more, having already fallen into a hole, Dobson hasn’t learned to stop digging.
A week ago, the mullah of Colorado Springs compared stem-cell research to Nazi experimentation on human beings during his nationally-broadcast radio program. There was no mistaking his thoughts on the issue — stem-cell research is inherently bad but has the potential for good, Dobson said, just as Nazi experimentation was inherently bad but, as Dobson put it, could have produced “some discoveries there that benefited mankind.” The two, Dobson explained, are moral equivalents.
He shifted into spin mode, saying that he had merely suggested that the research “has a Nazi-esque aura to it.” Since that was clearly not what he had told his radio audience, Dobson was already lying to try and get out of his mess.
To try and squelch the controversy once and for all, Dobson went on Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes to explain why he hadn’t said anything controversial. It didn’t go well.
“Well, I was talking about the philosophy behind the two. Admittedly, you know — and I’ve done a lot of studying of the concentration camps, and I just — it boggles the mind to see what happened there. And there’s no way that that was being minimized by what I talked about.
“But what I was saying is that life is life, and you can’t begin killing human beings at any age for a utilitarian purpose in order to use them for science or for other people. Once you start that, there’s no place to stop. I think it was wrong. It crossed an ethical line. And I don’t back off a bit from saying that. […]
“There have always been things that we could have done and we didn’t do because it was wrong to do them. That’s always been true, except in Nazi Germany. That was the exception, and that’s where there was no morality, and there were no ethics. And so to that degree, there is a relationship.” (emphasis added)
This doesn’t make any sense. You can’t say you’re not drawing a comparison and then draw a comparison. Even in Dobson’s bizarro universe, this is absurd.
The entire mess is starting to cause some conservative angst from Dobson’s allies.
In the Wall Street Journal today, the very conservative David Gelernter wrote a column essentially telling Dobson to shut up.
Last week, James Dobson of Focus on the Family proved that he lacks sufficient control to be pitching in the major leagues of public discussion and ought to be sent back to the minors. He compared embryonic stem cell research to Nazi death-camp experiments. I too (and millions of others) oppose broadened federal funding for stem-cell research, but Dr. Dobson has damaged rather than helped this cause. […]
Dr. Dobson’s analogy is grotesque.
Gelernter agrees with Dobson on practically everything. The fact that he’s disgusted is telling.
We can only hope Dobson keeps popping off on the subject. It’ll help expose him is a radical clown and it might drive a few votes in Congress our way on the stem-cell. Veto-proof majority, here we come.