Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 74

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Popular Culture Review
friendships. He and FOF certainly have a biased view of what the laws should
be and, God knows, their continual ranting and damning of gay people have
wearied many and turned more than a few away from their brand of “religion,”
as Dr. Dobson himself noted:
The younger generation and those yet to come will be
deprived of the Good News, as has already occurred in France,
Germany, and other European countries. Instead of providing
for a father and mother, the advent o f homosexual marriage
will create millions o f motherless children and fatherless kids.
(62; italics mine)
If the “Good News” is the derogatory rantings of dogmatic “religious”
leaders with an extremist political agenda, then one can only hope the venom is
curtailed as soon as possible. Irrationality, abuse of the English language, and
the annihilation of science and common sense reach their zenith in Dr. Dobson’s
statement “the advent of homosexual marriage will create millions of motherless
children and fatherless kids” (italics mine). Simple biology: the sperm from a
human male and the egg of a human female are needed to create a child.
“Parents” are something different, and if same-sex couples—who have had to
fight so hard for the privilege of parenting—can provide a child (whose
heterosexual genetic contributors are missing in action) with a loving, nurturing
family and home, then would that not be in the child’s and society’s best
interests?
Dobson and his Focus on the Family, Rev. Sheldon and his Traditional
Values Coalition, and the ministries of Jerry Falwell (who said the U. S.
“deserved” the 9-11 attacks for tolerating homosexuality and abortion) have
become little more than Doomsday cults, a fact confirmed in Dobson’s final
“argument.”
11.
The culture war will be over, and the world may soon become “as it
was in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37).
Dobson claims: “This is the climactic moment in the battle to preserve
the family, and future generations hang in the balance. This apocalyptic and
pessimistic view of the institution of the family and its future will sound alarmist
to many, but I think it will prove accurate . . . ” (63).
It is alarmist. It is irrational. But such exaggerated—often ridiculous-
rhetoric is common among the spokesmen for the Christian Right and their
political brethren such as Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), who said, on the floor
of the U. S. Senate during its debate of the Federal Marriage Amendment, “the
future of our cou ntry hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs
in the balance. Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security—standing up and
defending marriage?”