On Friday evening, CNN talk-show host Larry King began his program with nine very familiar words: “It’s always a pleasure to welcome Dr. James Dobson….”
James Dobson is the most powerful religious right figure that most Americans have never heard of. He’s just as strident and shrill as his comrades such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but he’s just not as famous.
Dobson runs a religious right empire from a campus in Colorado Springs through his organization, Focus on the Family. Though his professional background relates to child psychology, not religion, Dobson uses his internationally-broadcasted radio program to share his religious right agenda — promoting school prayer, vouchers, creationism, and Ten Commandments displays while railing against abortion, gays, and secular humanism — with the masses.
To be sure, Dobson sees enemies of Christianity everywhere. Usually, gays are his favorite target, but he’s also railed against sinister groups such as the Girl Scouts, whom Dobson accused of being proponents of “humanism and radical feminism.” More recently, Dobson became a cheerleader for Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments crusade in Alabama, encouraging like-minded theocrats to ignore the rule of law and demand government-sponsorship of his fundamentalist religious beliefs.
All the while, Larry King believes Dobson deserves airtime on his widely-watched program to share a religious right message with CNN’s audience.
Dobson, who got a full hour on King’s show last Friday, has appeared seven times on Larry King Live in just the last two years. This is utterly ridiculous. Seven times in two years translates to an appearance once every three-and-a-half months.
When I say seven times in two years, I’m not even counting the days when a Dobson interview will be re-broadcasted as a repeat, which has happened on a few occasions, giving Dobson even more invaluable free airtime to share his “thoughts” on religious and cultural issues.
It’s not as if Dobson has brilliant and unique insights that require his constant presence on King’s program. The guy is a religious right hack with a theocratic agenda. He’s Jerry Falwell with a PhD in child psych.
King, meanwhile, has not offered a single member of Congress, a cabinet secretary, a governor, or an attorney general from anywhere in America the same number of appearances as Dobson. More on point, King has also limited appearances from Dobson’s direct opponents in the so-called culture war. No one from the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, etc., has been on King’s show half as many times as Dobson over the same time period.
And King is often used as an example of the “liberal” media. Please.
What are the unique and exceptional perspectives Dobson shares with his constant access to CNN’s international audience? Well, on Friday’s program, Dobson explained that the “homosexual activist community…wants to destroy marriage.” He also mentioned that Jews can’t get into heaven because they don’t accept Jesus, and that Roy Moore should be allowed put up the Ten Commandments because he’s a Christian, while Muslim judges should be prohibited from putting up Islamic texts in American courtrooms.
Yeah, this sounds like a man who deserves a national TV audience on CNN once every three-and-a-half months.
If you, perhaps, believe that Larry King might want to expand on his rolodex a bit and invite the occasional progressive guest with a bit more tolerance than Dr. Dobson, you can send the show an email by following the “Contact Us” link at the show’s website.
And if you were curious, here’s all the links to the transcripts for all of Dobson’s appearances on King’s show: Sept. 5, 2003, Feb. 7, 2003, Sept. 18, 2002, June 6, 2002, March 7, 2002, Sept. 12, 2001, and Aug. 9, 2001.