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If you were part of evangelicalism or Christian nationalism anytime in the last 50 years, you know him as Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family. I grew up loving adventures in Odyssey and especially Magee and me. Look who's here with an exciting new series of video hits. It's McGee and me. The new adventures. Bigger, Better, more fantastic than ever. Mountain Climbing. Three exciting new stories from the real and make believe worlds of Nicholas and his animated friend McGee. It was nice knowing you, McGee. They seemed like wholesome educational content for good Christian families and kids. I had no idea that the particular brand of discipline that I suffered at home and the purity culture I would begin to encounter when I was nine were also ideas from this innocent, family friendly organization. Focus on the Family marketed itself as a warm, nurturing Christian ministry devoted to helping families thrive, presenting an image of wholesome guidance on marriage, parenting and faith. Glossy magazines saving us from harmful secular media, radio programs and children's resources portrayed it as a safe moral alternative to a culture in decline. They especially like to emphasize how that culture was harming children. But beneath this facade, Focus on the Family functioned as a powerful political machine and ideological ideological engine of the religious right. Rather than simply offering family advice, it promoted authoritarian and often abusive parenting, patriarchal gender roles, abstinence only education, and anti LGBTQ propaganda, often misrepresenting science and demonizing anyone outside their worldview. In reality, it was less about protecting families and more about enforcing a rigid, conservative Christian order, shaping public policy and fueling the culture wars under the guise of family values. This is a very personal topic for me because James Dobson's influence directly affected my siblings and I me into my late twenties. And as I've been talking with people after his death, more and more people have come forward with grief, pain and abuse, all directly furthered by James Dobson's teachings. So let's flip some tables hard today because no, the Bible doesn't support you beating your kids into oblivion. Your kids are not spirits to be broken, but little humans need to that need to be nurtured. And a woman's worth is so much more than her virginity. Today on Flipping Tables. Hello and welcome or welcome back to Flipping Tables, where we challenge a lot of ideas around faith, history and culture, especially in light of the onslaught of authority, authoritarianism and Christian nationalism we are experiencing now. Thank you so much. For those of you who have liked and reviewed the show. It helps me so much in the podcast space and if you haven't yet, please consider doing so. I appreciate it. I have a couple announcements and A little update before I dive into today's topic. Thank you. For those who supported my first merchandise run, we are moving over all the new merch drops to my brand new website, Monty mater.com. of course, Patreon users will get early access with your discount code and you can find all the info about what I'm working on, lessons, podcasts, news about my upcoming book, all on my website. I'm excited to have one page to find everything instead of several pages to manage everything. And thanks again to my Patreon supporters for making all of this possible. If you are in the activist tier, keep an eye out for an email and your first round of gift boxes that are coming out this month. I'm very excited. I've been working on those so amped. Lots of work, lots of content. But with my team here in the coven of curiosity battles my dear friend and my social media and brand coordinator, Laura McCuskey, who built the website and is the digital operations coordinator, and Alyssa Ventrella, who is my graphics designer. I'm so fancy. I have staff now. Seriously, without their help and without my podcast producer, Seager Rawls, you wouldn't hear me now. This wouldn't happen. It wouldn't get done. And so I'm very, very appreciative for all the work that they do. Um, I've had to call a CPA the other day to figure out all of my LLC and tax status to really make this all a well oiled machine, that the resources are getting to you in a timely manner, they're easy to find. Um, and there's only 24 hours in a day, so having help has been great. Last announcement, I received a very kind, almost fatherly email in June after announcing some of my new programs and my donation plans for Patreon. And this lovely listener sent me an email advising me not to do that. And I couldn't stop thinking about that email and emailed him back in August. And with his permission, I'm going to read it really quick before I make some changes. Dear Ms. Mater, that's so fancy. I am contacting you to ask that you seriously reconsider donating part of your Patreon proceeds to charity. I salute you for being a good person. However, I ask that you think about the future and the bigger picture. You have indirectly mentioned funds as a challenge. You've said you quit your other jobs to focus on your research and activism. Some followers have discussed your future in politics. You know who wins? Political races. Rich people. People with money. Case in point, America is now an oligarchy. Regarding your Bible studies, you've floated a monetary issue, I quote starting with a donation based payment plan so I can cover the cost of service, materials and the presentation room if I do end up doing ticketed events. I'm trying to implement a sliding scale, he said. This is a donation and a charity minded situation in itself. Why add another external, unrelated charity? I don't throw my money around lightly. I give to charities I choose and I'm not and I'm not fond of supporting someone who then turns and gives that money away to another charity not of my choosing. Especially when it seems apparent that they could save and use that money for important work that they themselves are doing. Why give away your proceeds when you can reinvest in your greatly appreciated work? I doubt that any of your million plus followers are going to accuse you of grifting from us. There are enough influencers out there that definitely derive funds from their followers and have zero qualms about it. On the contrary, they understand that that is their income. At first I thought, well, this must be a leftover habit from tithing in the evangelical life. But then a very quick Google search said evangelicals are one of the least tithing Christian groups. So I'm uncertain where you've become possessed of the desire to give away your income. I'm sure you've heard that one should have at least two months of income in the bank in case of personal setback or disaster. And we know disasters, man made or natural, seem to be happening around us every day now. My thoughts are for your future. For all I know, you could be independently wealthy. Kudos. If so, most importantly, I admit that none of this is my business. I will say that becoming a celebrity, which I would say you're becoming, does open you to unsolicited opinions, of which this is one. And for that I apologize. But I firmly believe your intelligence and views can be used to combat Christian nationalism that is destroying this country. And I want you to be a force in the future of this country, especially as you are starting out in Tennessee where we desperately need your voice. That is why I want you to keep the money you earn. Charities will always be there. You are in a building phase. Build you Respectfully, Reid Bogle Just one of your million and I spoke briefly with Reid and Reid, thank you for that message. And at first when I read that email I was like, oh that's nice. And then I just left it. But the more I thought about it and what my aspirations are not just for my content, my Book public speaking. And I realized he's right. My motivation for wanting to give back to charities is because being someone who has run my own business previous to this and fronted a band for several years, it's very easy. When you work for yourself or you're an artist and you're thinking about your brand and your image and your this, it becomes my, my, my, my, my. And even if it's professionally minded, it's very easy to get very egocentric. And my intention for wanting to have at least something that I'm giving back is so that I don't fold into myself. Because right now I'm just a tool. I'm a. I'm a tool for ideas and for change and hopefully can steer a ship of a lot of people that are braver and smarter than me in a direction to make things better. But Reid is right. And I realized I was doing a little bit too much and not thinking about the fact that I do intend to run for office. I will need funds, I will need resources. I'm getting invited to travel and meet other people in bigger protests and I have to be able to buy the flight. So here's what I've decided. We, meaning you and me, did donate $821 to the Trevor Project for July because I said I would. And you all made that possible. We made that donation. And what I've decided is going to be my way to give back is the scholarly Bible studies I've been teaching are always going to be free. That just feels good to me that, that feel like people coming. I have had a thousand to two thousand people per study who just want to learn what the Bible says or they want to learn about why Christian nationalism does what it does or they want to to explore faith. And I want to be able to just provide that information for free. We host those over on Crowdcast. You can find the info on my website and on Instagram. You do have to RSVP for those studies, but from now on they will always, always be free. You can donate if you want. You don't have to donate. That is going to be my gift, my way of giving back. And it's a lot of work, but it is so enjoyable. I love teaching those lessons and it's become one of the most enjoyable things that I get to do in this space. And that is always going to be free. And these are non conversion studies. I'm not interested in converting you to anything at any time. I want you to feel empowered to ask questions. I want you to have information about ancient culture, linguistics, how we understand things, translations, and then make up your own mind. Um, but I just wanted to cover that again. At first I completely dismissed Reid's email was like, oh, that's nice. But what? And I just, it would keep me up at night kind of revisiting me. And that's when I know I need to pay attention to something. So thank you for that. I'm grateful it stuck with me. I'm new to this space too, and I want to run for office. And though the way things look right now, honestly, I'm feel like I'll be sitting in the role of loud activists fighting against the regime and gerrymandering for a while. But as long as I'm breathing, I'm going to be resisting this movement. And I do intend to run for and hold office. Eventually, maybe someday I'll run for president. Who knows Today for our podcast, going back to our topic, we have three main sections. We're going to start with an overview of James Dobson's personal life, a focus of his work that catapulted him to fame, which was his book Dare to Discipline and the Power and Influence of Focus on the Family Itself. Let's flip this table. James Clayton Dobson Jr. Was born on April 21, 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana into a deeply religious family in the Church of the Nazarene. His father, James Dobson Sr. Was a traveling evangelist and his upbringing was steeped in conservative evangelical values. From an early age, Dobson was immersed in the idea that family life and strict Christian morals were the bedrock of society, that the loss of these institutions would be the sign signal of the downfall of society as we know it. He pursued psychology at Pasadena College, which is now Point Loma Nazarene University, and later earned a Ph.D. in child development from the University of Southern California in 1967. While many psychologists of the 1960s were leaning towards more permissive approaches to parenting, influenced by figures like Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dobson pushed hard in the opposite direction, promoting a non research backed strict discipline and corporal punishment mode to parenting. He would demonize and refute evidence that would surface over the next 50 years about the negative psychological impact of corporal punishment. Historical context matters here. It's it's 1970. The cultural landscape in America is shifting. There's resistance to the Vietnam War, is is polarizing society. Morals seem seem to be unraveling. The counterculture revolution is asking questions about faith and tradition. The counterculture looked at their parents and the ideals of grow up, get married, two kids, picket fence and said, well, what if this isn't all there is, what if this isn't what I want? Thought was expanding tradition and consumerism wasn't holding the power over young people who were hungry for newer purpose. They were hungry for equality and civil rights for all. Into this climate comes James Dobson, whose dare to Discipline. A book arguing the children must learn obedience through firm corporal discipline. It becomes a national hit in this. In this unstable environment where especially conservative families are worried about the downfall of society, becomes a mega hit. The religious right, who is demonizing these, quote, dirty hippies instead of engaging their questions, is eager to grab onto something that lets them blame the downfall of culture on something instead of, I don't know, maybe the traditions just weren't that good. But a book preaching the severe punishment of kids, the sexual subjugation of women, and the utter dominance of men across culture and society because, quote, God said so, and if we don't honor this hierarchy, society will collapse, was happily accepted. To push back on the discomfort of changing ideas evolving and the fear of equality, particularly for African Americans. By 1977, Dobson founds focus on the Family, which was initially a radio counseling service, but it exploded into a multimedia juggernaut by the 1990s. The program is broadcasted on over 7,000 stations worldwide in 164 countries, with daily listeners estimated in the hundreds of millions. Talk about reach now. It's important to remember that Dobson was not an ordained pastor, but. But he became the nation's most influential evangelical leader. According to the New York Times. Slate even called him the successor to figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, cementing him in the religious right pantheon. More on his allegiance to those leaders later. Dobson begins to use his platform not just to dispense parenting advice, but to unite families under a conservative worldview. Opposing feminism. They hate feminism. With a passion. LGBTQ rights and abortion. His message, the family is the cornerstone of civilization and it's under siege from secular forces, was truly resonating with people. And I want to say something a little bit on this idea of biblical marriage. And. And people will say, well, the Bible says marriage is between one man, one woman, one lifetime. Which is interesting because I want them to explain to me why Abraham was never condemned for his sexual relationship with Hagar while he was married to Sarah. He was condemned for his lack of faith because he didn't believe that Sarah would conceive, but he was never condemned for that extramarital relationship, which. Which boils down to assault. She was a servant person who didn't have the right to Consent. Or what about Jacob, who married both Leah and Rachel? Never condemned. David had eight wives and an unknown number of concubines. And that's before we get to his kidnapping, his abduction and rape of Bathsheba. Nothing said there. And then his son Solomon, 700 wives and 300 concubines. Which biblical marriage do people mean? Paul's sexual ethic in the New Testament says to avoid marriage and kids if at all possible. Which biblical marriage do you mean? Or is it possible that you've negotiated with the text to make it say what you want to say? Because ancient standards do not match the claim that you're giving. By ancient sexual identity standards, a man could have sex with anything, man, woman, animal. And as long as he was not taking the receptive role, it was not considered a threat on his masculinity. That carried all the way through Rome. So which biblical marriage do you mean? It's a little bit disingenuous, but Dobson intentionally manipulated this machine into politics. In 1973, he said in a forward to the book, sex is a partner affair. He said, quote, the Bible is silent on the matter of abortion and suggested that a developing embryo or fetus was not regarded as a full human being in the Bible, which is true. And an honest interaction with scripture around abortion, specifically in Exodus. I have a whole Bible study about this on Patreon, by the way, if you want to listen to that study. But when more power and more money could be had by opposing the passage of Roe vs Wade, by opposing the feminist movement, he pivoted and rallied behind Falwell and the Moral Majority and became vehemently anti abortion. By 1981, he had helped establish the Family Research Council as a lobbying arm of his ministry and state level family council. Family policy councils followed. Before long he was advising presidents including Reagan, both the Bushes, Clinton and even on moral and family pol policy. He became a kingmaker without ever running for office. Campaigns sought his blessing, candidates parroted his talking points and he built the talking points and his radio fans mobilized to sway legislation like those anti gay marriage amendments in multiple states. But Dobson's influence also had its shadow. Critics argued that his strict patriarchal ideas, which we'll dive into, infused evangelicalism with authoritarianism, reinforcing purity culture and corporal punishment and fostering deep suspicion of psychological science unless the psychological science came from him. By the late 2000s, tides started to shift. Dobson steps down as the president of Focus on the family. And in 2003 he left his chairman role at. Excuse me. Dobson stepped down as president of Focus on the family in 2003 and then left his chairman role by 2010. He cites a generational transition. He appoints Jim Daly as his successor, but there's more. Daily reportedly fostered a slightly softer tone as evangelical audience started to evolve. The hatred, the allure, the ignorance of silence wasn't holding quite as well as it had in the 70s, but Dobson held fast to his rigid, hard stances. Remember that letter from 2012 in Obama's America, which was Dobson's dystopian manifesto, warned of Christian persecution, Child indoctrination and cultural collapse under Obama is now seen as extreme fear mongering, even among conservative standards. And when speaking of child indoctrination, there's only one group trying to push their push, only their ideology, only their belief system in schools. So what happened? In 2010, Dobson launched the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and a new radio broadcast called Family Talk. This was a more personal ministry, less organizational and more directly him. He continued to appear in media and advise faith based audiences, including during the Trump era. But by 2022 he stepped away from leadership of his own institute, handing the reins to Joe Wersack in 2025. James Dobson passed away, as you know, last week at the age of 89, and while tributes poured in, he was praised for shaping generations, advising and speaking steadfastly for biblical values. He was also also the subject of so much pain and scrutiny from so many people whose lives were directly or indirectly altered by his teachings. Let's dive in to exactly what those teachings were, starting with his blockbuster book Dare to Discipline. James Dobson said in that book, quote, pain is a marvelous purifier. His breakout came in 1970 with the publication of Dare to Discipline, which sold millions of copies and established him as a household name among conservative Christian parents. The book argued for loving but firm corporal punishment, insisting that children's wills needed to be broken for them to become obedient Christians. He believed that breaking their spirit in submission to their parents would make them more submissive to God. How awful to talk about breaking the spirit of your child. That seems completely out of alignment in my opinion, with Ephesians 6:4, which says do not provoke your children to wrath. However, the success of Dare to Discipline turned Dobson into a cultural influencer far beyond academia, and it's amazing to me how far fundamentalists will go to defend hitting their kids. By 1977, he founded Focus on the Family in Arcadia, California, and later relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado. As a kid from Wyoming, we visited Focus on the Family several times, my dad gobbling up and buying their material while I played in the kids corner with my little brother. The organization began again as a small radio ministry, but quickly expanded. It became a multimillion dollar evangelical empire, producing books, magazines, videos and one of the most popular Christian radio programs in the world. Dobson became not just a psychologist, but a moral authority for millions of American evangelicals, shaping family dynamics, gender roles and politics for decades and giving scientific backing and justification for their already held beliefs. I want to be very clear that Dobson is direct responsible for what we are witnessing right now. The takeover of Christian national nationalism, their assaults on the Constitution, their assaults on women's rights, their belief about pushing women into the home with less resources and education instead of giving women true equality and equal resources is directly shaped by Dobson. Dobson was, though, most infamous for his unapologetic defense of spanking and physical punishment of children. This was his big claim to fame. It would make him an enshrined icon in Christian fundamentalism and a pariah in the growing psychological community around child development. In Dare to Discipline. In later writings he recommended spanking with objects like belts or switches, especially on the buttocks, arguing that it was biblically mandated. We'll get to that later. He famously advised parents to spank toddlers for disobedience and described how he struck his own dog to assert dominance. As a lesson, he would compare children to pets who needed obedience beat into them. He called toddlers tyrants and sadists and said that if a child cried for more than two to five minutes after a beating, he was clearly trying to punish his parents for disciplining him and needed to be spanked again. Now I want to touch base really quick on this. The biblical idea of discipline now spare the rod, spoil the child is not a biblical tenet that comes from a Scottish proverb. But they're referencing Proverbs 22:15 which says foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child and the rod of discipline will rem it far from him. This is not talking about a wooden spoon or a switch. It is a shepherd's rod. And fortunately for everyone here I have worked with sheep. I grew up on a cattle ranch where we had sheep. Pigs, horses, cows and sheep are the most stubborn, stupid animal you will ever deal with. You cannot get a sheep to change direction by beating. Doesn't matter. You have to use something to redirect its head or or use your body to physically nudge it to get it to change direction. And once you can get a few sheep to change direction the rest of the herd will follow them. A shepherd did not use his rod to beat sheep. He used it to guide them, to course correct them. And if they fell into a ravine or into the water where they cannot save themselves, the hook was used to pull them out. It is a tool of guidance and rescue, not a tool of violence. It's not. That's not the way that works. And it's an intentional mistranslation of that passage. For people who already believe that spanking their children is what they should do. Now, my dad particularly loved the teaching around the not crying after you've been beat. We were spanked viciously with a wooden spoon, which was one of James Dobson's recommended tools, or a whip or a frozen hose, whatever was handy. But we weren't allowed to cry or scream at all. He wouldn't stop until you did. And so you quickly learned to bite onto a pillow and take it and cry in your room later when he couldn't see you. And of course he made you hug him after and tell him how much he loved you and it was harder on him than it was on you. But that was what spankings were like in my household. To the point where if you fought back again, he would spank you harder and more viciously because you were being, quote, defiant, quote, a strong willed child. And one time I had a spanking so severe the bruises went from my bra line to the back of my knees. Research was already growing when Dobson released this book in the 70s about the harmful psychological effects of corporal punishment. The research would explode in the 90s, but Dobson and the Republican religious right would have none of it. Child psychologists and pediatricians have long argued that Dobson's views normalized abuse produce shame, fear and trauma in children because the research all indicates that it's harmful. It causes developmental damage, mental health disorders, shame, fear, deep seated insecurity and causes children to seek out abusive relationships in their future due to the evidence of long term harm. The American Academy of Pediatrics has strongly opposed corporal punishment, but this does not align with Christian fundamentalist beliefs about God and family. Christian fundamentalism cannot function without extreme patriarchal hierarchies and gender roles. In fact, Bill Gothard released a very popular graphic about the God Ordained Order of Authority and a couple versions of it are going to appear on screen if you're watching this. If not, I'm going to describe it to you. Now, this graphic has a series of umbrellas, the top umbrella being Christ, and it says underneath it authority to forgive sins, which is passed down to pastors. And then underneath that umbrella is the husband. And there's a couple different versions of this graphic, but the primary one has the Christ umbrella and then it's the husband, which says protect the family, provide for the family. Underneath is the wife, and she is over the children and managers of the home. Only some versions of this graphic have pastors between Christ and husband. So the pastor is to protect the church and oversee the husband, and then it's husband and wife underneath it. All other alternate versions of this graphic have a different one where it shows the umbrella of Satan and it says perverts and undermines the family. And then the second umbrella is the wife, which if she's above her husband, allows Satan access to children and disempowers the husband. And if the husband is under the wife or in parity with the wife, the household is in disorder and the will of God unfulfilled. This graphic, this is one of the earliest memories I have of church is this graphic from Bill Gothard. And anyone who grew up in the 90s in evangelicalism like remembers this graphic. This graphic was sold as the direct will of God. And let's talk about Bill Gothard for a minute. Because Dobson's teachings, coupled with Bill Gothard's teachings around family, were the foundational in damaging, in inflicting damage on millions of families, specifically women and children, and formed the bedrock of the Christian nationalist beliefs that we're now witnessing. Bill Gothard's umbrella of authority, which was what that diagram was called, and Dobson's beliefs around gender roles, the role of family and corporal discipline. But Bill Gothard, for more than four decades shaped the lives of millions of conservative Christians across the United States and beyond. His message was simple. Obey authority, keep women in submission, and follow a rigid formula for family life that promised success, safety and blessing. You can think of Bill Gothard's teachings around family as a form of prosperity gospel, but in marriage and family, and behind his very carefully controlled facade, Gothard himself was engaging in patterns of behavior that contradicted everything he demanded from his followers. To the surprise of absolutely nobody at this point, allegations of manipulation, harassment and the abuse of women and young girls eventually forced to step down. What an ultra conservative fundamentalist leader teaching purity caught abusing women and teenagers. Who would have guessed? Bill Gothard launched his ministry in the 1960s. And by the 70s, his basic youth conflict seminar were packing out arenas. Families, pastors and churches were desperate for answers into the cultural chaos again of the countercultural revolution, the sexual revolution, feminism, rock music, Divorce rates were climbing, which, by the way, they were climbing because women could get divorced. We have this idea that divorce rates were so low in the 50s because marriages were happy. No, Grandma didn't have a choice. She had no way to earn money in the long term. She couldn't have a bank account. She couldn't own property on her own. It was very strict laws around divorce. She couldn't leave your abusive, cheating grandfather. We have to get rid of that disillusionment. 1950s Happy Housewife is a propaganda scheme used to push women in the home. They were not happy. They were so unhappy, in fact, that in magazines, housekeeping magazines, things like benzodiazepines were marketed to women as mommy's little helpers, because women needed stimulants to get through the day and depressants to go to sleep because they were so unhappy. We got to get rid of that idea. But Gothard promised a way out of this countercultural revolution, a return to what he called biblical authority. And again, we look at the Bible. The Bible has so many accounts of sexual assault that is not confronted by God or anyone else. In fact, a victim of sexual assault would be forced to marry her rapist, provided he bought her from her father. David never condemned for his rape of Bathsheba, but condemned for stealing something from another man. Remember that when the prophet Nathan came to David, he said, you have taken this ewe lamb from a poor man. That was the analogy he used. Bathsheba was the lamb. It wasn't about attacking her, it was about stealing from another man. So if we're really going to be honest about the morality of our current culture, we have to understand that the Bible was written for an ancient culture, an ancient patriarchal culture, and it wasn't written for Americans. They didn't know America would exist then. And we have to be able to look at those things and say, no, we do not support women as property. No, we will condemn and we will punish sexual assault. This idea of biblical authority from. From scriptures that didn't condemn those things, we have to be honest with it and we have to wrestle with it. But the heart of Bill Gothard's message was this umbrella of authority. God at the top, then fathers, then mothers, then children. Protection, Gothard said, only came when you stayed under the umbrella above. You step outside and you opened yourself up to rebellion, spiritual danger, or even demonic attack. For men, this teaching was empowering. Yes, how convenient to have a God made after your own image that gives you all the authority, all the resources, and all the Power for women, it was suffocating because guess what? Women are fully human beings. And I don't believe for one second that God created half the human race to be inferior, to be second class. The teaching was that God made women less. Less rights, less authority, less autonomy, less options. But if you stepped outside of that role, you were sinning against God. Gothard taught that a woman's role was to submit first to her father and then to her husband. Education and careers were discouraged. We're seeing a new wave of that right now. There was recently the largest all women's conservative rally that happened that told women, focus on your house, focus on your children, have as many kids as you can, and encouraged women to avoid education and careers. And also pushed weight loss, because within this paradigm, within the paradigm of purity culture that I'll get into in a minute, weight loss is next to godliness, which also falls in alignment with a white supremacy version of what beautiful and feminine is. Motherhood and homemaking under Gothard were framed as the highest calling, which again contradicts First Corinthians 7, where Paul says, Two widows and the unmarried do not get married. Focus your life on serving God. And up until the Protestant Reformation, where Martin Luther translated the first Protestant Bible, it was Martin Luther who changed a woman's highest calling to motherhood and homemaking and submission to her husband. Prior to that, a woman's highest calling in service of God was to declare celibacy, avoid marriage and children, and devote her life to God. So whose standards are we going by here? Because there's a lot of them. And when it came to relationships, under Gothard's teachings, dating was forbidden. Instead, Gothard pushed, quote, courtship, a system where the father arranged and oversaw every detail, including choosing the person you were seeing. There was also a dress code. Women were told to wear long skirts, avoid pants, cover their bodies. Very Taliban. Like I just spoke. I just did an interview with Dr. Richard Ballmer, who wrote the book this America's Best Idea, the Separation of Church and State. And he is a professional in religion. His doctorate is in religion and religious fundamentalism. And when he was leading the doctorate program at Columbia, he and his co workers. That's not the word I'm looking for. What's the word I'm looking for? Colleagues. Colleagues, Right. Equal. Equal measure. His colleagues did a study on fundamentalist religion. Every sect of fundamentalist religion they could find. Hindu, Islam, Christian, Mormon, all of them. They studied every fundamentalist religion they could find documentation of. And all of these religions have one thing in common. Now, Some of them have several things that overlap, but they all have one thing in common, and it is the subjugation of women. That is the only thing that all of the religious fundamentalists across the world, across religions have in common. That's why the Taliban and Christian nationalism are not that far apart. For all their Islamophobia, they want to establish what the Taliban has established in Afghanistan. Now, Gothard insisted that men were easily tempted, so therefore it was a woman's responsibility to prevent lust. If a man stumbled, it was the woman's fault. Men are supposed to be the leaders, but they apparently cannot lead themselves. Through his homeschool curriculum, the Advanced Training Institute, or ati, thousands of families adopted these rules. Daily life was controlled. What you wore, what music you listened to, what friends you made, and even how you smiled. Everything was about order, control and unquestioning obedience. And I want to say something about unquestioning obedience because this relates to Dobson too. Unquestioning obedience is an enormous predictor for prolonged sexual abuse. Because when you have a grown adult come to a child or a teenager, groom them, assault them, say, do not question my authority, do not tell your parents, and you have raised your child to never question anything coming from an authority figure, they are much more likely to stay in that abuse and not tell you. A defiant child is much harder to abuse. In Matthew 23:27 through 28, it says, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside you are full of bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. That's exactly what this was. Gothard's ministry, especially Dobson's too. But for Gothard, on the outside it looked like purity, chasteness, godliness. And instead it was coercion, enabling and abuse. And for years, rumors circulated. People whispered that Gothard gave special attention to young, attractive girls at his headquarters. Many were teenagers, 14, 15, 16 years old, sent to work at IBLP for their from their deeply trusting parents. The stories have the exact same pattern. Gothard would select a girl he found appealing and place her and place her in close proximity to him, his secretary, his travel companion or his assistant. He often called them his, quote, favorites, not gross at all. The behavior started subtly, as it often does, long car rides where he insisted on sitting right next to them, hand holding that lingered A little too long, stroking hair, touching feet and legs. He apparently would give them foot massages, brushing his hand against their thighs during late night talks. One woman described how Gothard would call her into his office at night, sit close and confide in her about his personal struggles. Another remembered how he touched her hair and whispered how beautiful she was. Still another recalled being given a private, private late night car ride where his hand would rest on her knee. These were not isolated incidents. Over time, dozens of women reported almost identical experiences. And when girls or staff raised concerns, the system shut them down. Complaints were ignored or covered up. The blame was shifted onto the women themselves who had, quote, tempted him or misunderstood his intentions. Questioning Gothard was painted as rebellion against God himself, because Gothard had created the umbrella of authority. That said, if you question the umbrella above you, which as a woman includes your husband or your father and your pastor and a teacher like Gothard, if you question that authority, it's painted as rebellion against God himself, the same way it's painted in the church, which is why the church consistently covers for abusers. It is not shocking to anyone who grew up in a fundamentalist church that they will repeatedly defend pedophiles, cover for them, cover up for wife abusers. And it is not shocking that they are defending Trump, who is clearly on the Epstein file. This was spiritual abuse layered over physical and emotional manipulation. Victims were trapped in silence, convinced that to resist Bill Gothard was to resist the will of God. By the early 2010s, the whispers turned into public accusations. For 50 years, he had been getting away with abusing teenage girls. In 2014, a group of over 30 women came forward, telling remarkably similar stories of harassment, grooming and inappropriate behavior. The testimonies were published online, creating a wave of outrage that could no longer be ignored or covered up by the iblp. The board placed Gothard on administrative administrative leave while they investigated, and shortly afterward, he resigned as president. He, of course, denied any wrongdoing. But the damage wasn't over. In 2016, 10 women filed a lawsuit against Gothard in the IBLP alleging sexual harassment, abuse and the culture of coverage Europe. The stories were harrowing. Young girls pulled from their families, placed in close proximity to a man who abused his power and the entire system designed to protect him. Right this. That is why we cannot play into systems that say that to question male authority, whether it's your father or your husband or your pastor, is to defy God. And again, we can look at the New Testament. Jesus changed the law of divorce in Matthew 19 when they came to him and they said, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? That was the Old Testament law. A man could divorce his wife for any reason he wanted. And Jesus, in an effort to give women who were property in his culture some form of protection and legal parody, he said, it is wrong to divorce for any reason other than unfaithfulness. And we know that this wasn't the Old Testament standard because later the disciples say, if this is the case for marriage, then it is better to remain unmarried. They were so shocked by Jesus's command that put women in a place of security and parity in their marriages, that they said, ugh, if we don't have that much control, it's not worth getting married. That is how we know Jesus was attempting over and over to elevate women to give them the same standing as men. And I think that Jesus would want us to do that. Now, his longest recorded conversation in the New Testament is with the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands. And he doesn't condemn her. He doesn't yell at her. He doesn't tell her to serve him. He speaks with her across racial, religious, and gender lines. That would have been a huge violation in decorum as a Jewish man, and he did it anyway. I think that if we're looking to honor Christ's teachings or the spirit of Christ's teachings, it demands that we elevate women to equality, because that's what he tried to do. And though the case against Gothard was eventually dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired, the damage was done, and there was more than enough evidence to convict him. He was saved by that statute. Bill Gothard's empire crumbled and good. And as is the case, though with these evil religious men, their teachings unfortunately don't die with them. His umbrella of authority and strict family hierarchy still influence part of the homeschooling and the Quiverful movement. You might recognize the Quiverful movement from the references in the duggar family in 19 kids and counting. His ATI curriculum is still floating around in Christian circles, and the scars left on people who grew up under his system are lasting. For women especially, the damage was profound. They were raised to believe that their worth was tied to obedience and submission. Their voices were silenced. Their autonomy was stripped away. Think about consent for a second under these circumstances. As you grow up, your. Your role is submission and obedience to your father. The most important thing about you is virginity. So if you fall in love as a teenager or someone in your 20s, you can't give consent. This system strips you of your ability to say yes if you want to have intimacy with someone you love. But then once you get married, marital rape doesn't exist, and you are stripped of your right to say no. The reason that there are so many more sermons about gossip than there are about rape is because fundamentally, this type of Christian movement doesn't believe in consent. When you are unmarried, you do not have the right to say yes, and when you are married, you do not get the right to say no. Survivors have spoken about the years it took them to unlearn the shame and the fear drilled into them by Gothard's teachings. And perhaps the most haunting part of this story is that Gothard preached purity, obedience, and control while privately engaging in patterns of grooming and abuse of teenage girls. He created a system where women were blamed for their own victimization, which we see all across fundamentalist culture now. Christian nationalism. The first if the first question you have when someone's attacked is, what were you wearing? Shame on you. Gothard said speaking out was a sin and where a man with unchecked authority was untouchable because defying male authority defied God. But eventually, women did speak, as they often do. Survivors broke the silence. And in doing so, they brought down a man who had spent his life teaching others how to live under authority. Now let's get back to Dobson. Dobson's teachings towards women, which were influenced by Gothard's umbrellas, required the total dominance of a wife and child within the home, while husbands, in theory, submitted to the pastor. I say in theory because there is very little patriarchal accountability in these teachings. To question your pastor or the head of the house is to question God and therefore rebellion. Dobson's approach reinforced this authoritarian family structure where questioning authority was equated with sin and rebellion against God. Systems of abuse thrive in silence. If you can't speak against it, if you can't say it, if you can't question it, it is a perfect petri dish for abuse. The church can't survive without the free labor of women, and it cannot survive without their children growing up to fill the pews, keep people in line, and keep them in the pews. This is one of the core tenets of their hatred for the LGBTQ community. It disrupts the hierarchy that places men at the top with the ability to act with impunity, and the hierarchy that they need to survive, not because it's particularly biblical. They feel far less passionate about adultery. Why are there no calls from the Christian fundamentalist community to make adultery illegal. Adultery is condemned in both the Old and New Testament six times more often than anything to do with same sex interaction. And the Old Testament only seems to apply at all when they're talking about same sex interaction. And the thing is, is that we know it's not about the sex. We know it's about hierarchy within these cultures. Why do we know that? Because female to female, same sex interaction in the Old Testament is never even mentioned. Why? Because it didn't disrupt the hierarchy. It wasn't about the relationship. It was about men being in a submissive position with their wives. Because in ancient cultures a man was also seen unfavorably if he took a submissive sexual position with his own wife. Life. There are ancient proverbs about this. And in the New Testament, the passages that are referenced are directly in relation to Paul's discussion about idolatry, unbridled lust, things like the feasts of Bacchanalia where they would have these massive uncontrolled orgies. But again, even if, even if they were talking about homosexuality as we know it, which, remember that the word homosexual didn't even exist until the 1860s. We had no idea about sexual orientation until the 1800s. But even if that's what they meant, why is there no call from Christian nationalists to make adultery, which is discussed way more often illegal? Why are they okay with charging interest when the Bible condemns that there are 2,000 commands to welcome the foreigner as your own, to help the poor? And consistently Republicans, the GOP and Christian fundamentalists vote against policies that do those things. It's the biblical interpretation of convenience which makes God in your own image instead of the other way around. God does not have an issue with questions. It's men who don't like being questioned. This idea of vicious, violent love is exactly what they understand about the love of God. This idea around punishment falls in line with what they believe about God. Why they justify their mistreatment of anyone that they deem as other falls in line with what they believe about God. Because if God is love, yet this unconditional love will throw you into hell if you do not worship him correctly, regardless of your kindness, your compassion, your acts of service, hit you his child, he will throw you right into hell. And I don't know of any human parent that would do that. That then it makes sense to them that they would understand love to be violent and exclusionary. And that carries down into these beliefs about discipline. Because love is violent for Christians, it entirely shapes how they view love rigid inflexible and violent. And I want to say something really quick here to parents, because I know, and I had a conversation with one of my Patreon followers about this for those she. And she mentioned on a post I made about this, that she felt deep grief and deep shame over following these teachings with her kids and that she has apologized to her adult children and tried to make it right. And I want to reach out to the parents who maybe did practice this because you thought you were doing the right thing. Now, for many people, these teachings did enable their abuse because they were already abusive, angry people. Many of you probably used it because you thought it was the right thing. And what I want you to do is grieve that, understand that it's wrong, repent of it to your kids, heal that damage with them, but also give yourself some grace that you yourself were misled, that you yourself were taught that this was God's will. But intent doesn't negate harm. So when we understand that we have participated in something harmful, we have to do our best to make it right. But save yourself a little bit of grace in that as well, and a little bit of forgiveness for yourself. Now we're going to move a little bit more deeply into Dobson's teachings around marriage and gender roles. Dobson consistently promoted these patriarchal gender roles. And again, I'm. I'm consistently amazed at how convenient it is that these men just so happen to have a God and a religion who ruthlessly puts them in charge of everyone and everything. And just so happens that gives only men all the power and influence. A God who made half the human race inferior. Dobson argued that women's primary calling, like Gothard, was to submit to their husbands, nurture children, and prioritize home over career. In his books and radio broadcasts, he opposed feminism as a threat to the biblical family, frequently warning that feminism undermined men's authority and led to social decay. We go right back to framing Eve. Did you know that when women engage in peace talks between countries, those peace agreements last 15 years longer on average? Women do not lead to social decay. When women are in leadership, more money is put towards infrastructure in schools. Consistently, women do not lead to social decay. This is right back to framing Eve for something she didn't do. Do women actually lead to social flourishing? Better social programs, longer peace, less war. And it's been proven time and time again, but it has to be demonized in order to uphold these structures. Dobson also preached that men were, quote, natural leaders and that wives must honor and obey their husbands, even in Difficult circumstances except in cases of clear provable abuse. Heavy emphasis on provable. A bit of a deviation from his mentor, Paul Popeno, who was the founder of Christian marriage counseling. Paul Popeno was an atheist, a eugenicist and a white supremacist who believed that white women should never take birth control, never be able to divorce and never marry outside their race. When Paul Popeno helped establish Christian marriage counseling in the mid 20th century, he framed it less as a neutral science and more as a tool to preserve traditional gender hierarchies, the nuclear family and the white race. As a eugenicist turned quote marriage counselor, Popeno argued that strong marriages required strict male leadership and female submission, discouraging divorce and promoting rigid roles as a key to social stability. Dobson was the direct assistant to Paul Popeno and a counselor at Popeno's Institute of Family Relations. Dobson absorbed this framework, recasting Popeno's patriarchal vision through an evangelical lens. Marriage as divinely ordained hierarchy Again Gothard's umbrella. It's the same thing with the men as the head of household, women as supporters. Bound together by strict discipline of children and sexual purity. This inheritance shaped the foundation of focus on the family, embedding a eugenics tinged patriarchal ideal into the heart of modern evangelical counseling and culture. When Popeno came forward with these marriage counseling ideals, they were considered so extreme that the only people that would latch onto them were evangelical leaders. It was it was immediately dismissed by mainstream society. This rhetoric contributed to the evangelical purity culture where women were blamed for men's lust. Where male headship was treated as divinely ordained, Women were encouraged to be long suffering and submit more in the face of abuse or infidelity. And even though those divinely ordained men were completely incapable of controlling their lust, even with little girls, it was women's job to submit to them them. In dare to discipline 1970, James Dobson wrote, 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. Sex. A man accepts a girl as his lifetime responsibility, supplying her needs and caring for her welfare. Welfare. This sexual aspect of the marital agreement can be hardly denied. Let me translate that. Marriage is the oath where a woman exchanges sex for protection. Dobson was a major promoter of the 1990s and early 2000s purity culture movement focused on the family sponsored purity balls for fathers and daughters where fathers would promise to defend their daughter's chastity and daughters would commit their virginity to their fathers until he gave them away in marriage. Gross. Dobson famously gave A gold key on a necklace to his 10 year old daughter so she'd keep herself locked up for marriage. My dad was also a big fan of this rule. I had to sign a purity contract promising my purity to my father when I was 13. Modeling after Dobson, I was given a gold necklace and earrings and allowed to get my ears pierced. At the time when you're drowning in and surrounded by this rhetoric, it didn't seem weird at all. Dobson also supported abstinence only programs, even though these programs have been proven less effective in preventing teen pregnancy and the spread of STDs. He did not like research that did not align with the beliefs he already held. And he heavily pushed literature that emphasized virginity as a girl's most important gift. Let me say that again. A girl's virginity was the most important thing about her. In the 90s. This led to the rise of non virgins being compared to chewed up gum or a used car that men wouldn't want. And while sex outside of marriage was the worst thing you could do as a girl, and so sinful, that rule never seemed to apply to the men. My friends and I and many women who I've met who grew up in these movements have all said, as a kid, I would rather tell my parents I had killed someone, then I had had sex or I had gotten pregnant. This teaching shamed young women, burdened them with responsibility for male sexuality and lack of restraint, which led to protecting abusers, demonizing victims, and framed sexuality as dangerous outside of marriage. It also led to chronic sexual problems like vaginissimus, which is seen in higher incidents in women from fundamentalist communities, preventing them from being able to have pain free sex. It also induced sexual shame, psychological damage, fear of intimacy, and a distorted self worth. Because how do you grow up being told the worst thing you can do is have sex? It'll make you dirty, used up, filthy, a whore. And then the night of your wedding, you're supposed to flip a switch and become a porn star. And they wonder why so many religious women have sexual dysfunction or don't want to have sex with their husband. Of course they don't know. They have been told that their own very natural sexual desires are sinful. And now magically, after their wedding, that's not supposed to be the problem anymore. Gotta be kidding. And then there's the homophobia and the anti LGBTQ rhetoric from Dobson and Focus on the Family. On a Focus on the Family radio broadcast in 2003, James Dobson said, if we allow two men to marry, there's no Way we can deny marriage to a man and his daughter, or a man and a child, or a man and an animal. Dobson was one of the fiercest evangelical opponents of LGBTQ rights. He claimed that homosexuality was unnatural, dangerous, and incompatible with family life. Focus on the Family produced pamphlets, radio shows and lobbying campaigns insisting that same sex parenting harm children, claims that intentionally misrepresented or outright distorted academic research men who cheat on their wives. Dobson, Focus on the Family, didn't have an opinion. He supported conversion therapy initiatives through Focus on the Family's program Love Won out, perpetuating the harmful myth that sexuality could and should be changed. Dobson also amplified anti gay propaganda during the AIDS crisis all the way into the 2000s, contributing to the stigma, family re rejection and policies hostile to LGBTQ people. He even advocated to the government that they not fund HIV and AIDS research or treatment, perpetuating the idea that it was God's just punishment on the homosexual community. How loving. How dare you say that? You follow Christ and that is your opinion. Opinion. He also famously said that the Sandy Hook shooting was because of America's acceptance of gay rights. My dad also told me that this is why Hurricane Katrina hit the Southern U.S. an idea that once again supported by the foundational belief in a violent, quote, loving God. And again, just a reminder that in 1973, Dobson wrote in a forward to the book, sex is a parent affair, the Bible is silent on the matter of abortion, and a developing embryo or a fetus is not regarded as a full human being. Again. He would later change that view in the 80s when it became financially more lucrative to align with evangelicals like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to fight against the IRS's threat to remove tax exempt status from people like Falwell's Christian segregation academies. When the opportunity arose, Dobson leveraged Focus on the Family into one of the most powerful political arms of the religious right. He mobilized evangelicals around anti abortion, anti LGBTQ and anti feminism and, quote, pro family policies. His radio program and mail campaigns helped deliver evangelical votes to conservative politicians from Ronald Reagan to Bush and even to Trump, and again, abstinence only, sex education, the Defense of Marriage act in 1996, opposition to Roe vs Wade several years after he had supported it, passing opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, framing it as a threat to family values. Reminder that the Equal Rights Amendment simply protects women having equal rights in the Constitution. So what he's saying is that women having equal protection under the Constitution threatens family values. He promoted family caps and welfare restrictions, aligning with the conservative attack on poor women, especially women of color, supported conversion therapy and advocated that the government not fund the research and treatment for HIV and AIDS victims. Times. Dobson also claimed that America was immoral freefall and only conservative Christian policies could preserve civilization. His rhetoric framed social issues as an existential battle of culture wars, contributing to today's polarized politics. Again, we are here because of Dobson, in large part in large part because of his teachings. So let's shift towards the end here and focus on Focus on Focus on the Family itself From the beginning of Focus on the Family, Dobson positioned himself not just as a pastor, but really as a psychologist, as this academic and that title carried weight. But Focus on the Family used it to misrepresent science let's take their views on parenting. The organization long insisted that children only thrive when raised by a married mother and father, and Focus on the Family has frequently argued that children fare best with both their mom and dad, but these claims are often used to oppose same sex parenting. But the research they cite only compares two parent homes to single parent homes. Which children in two parent homes do fare better. Why? Because it is a lot easier to manage all the needs of your children with two people versus one because a single parent is going to have more struggle with resources, finances, time and researcher Judith Stacy directly pushed back on this misuse saying whenever you hear Focus on the Family legislators or lawyers saying studies prove that children children do better in families with a mother and father, they are referring to studies which compare two parent heterosexual households to single parent households, not heterosexual homes compared to homosexual homes. The studies they are talking about do not cite researches research on families headed by gay and lesbian couples. They took that research and deliberately misinterpreted it to say that science backed their opinion. Again, science only counts when it agrees with the them, so thus their portrayal of objective science backing is deceptive. The real distinction being highlighted in those studies again is between a single versus two parent household. But unfettered by the need for integrity, Focus on the Family continues to present this research as being against both gay couples and single parent households by emphasizing trends in grades or discipline without adequate context. In a recent article in their online publication Daily Citizen, they stated children from married birth parent households are 1.68 more times more likely to get mostly A's. Students from unmarried or disrupted families face 2.09 times higher odds of disciplinary issues. Now while these stats cite sites sociological surveys, they rarely acknowledge critical factors such as socioeconomic status, systemic inequality, neighborhood resources and the impacts of poverty, all of which are huge in the Outcomes of a child's performance on a grade level. All of these social programs like snap, Medicaid assistance and, and all of these that Dobson notoriously opposed help single families thrive. And again, this push for, oh, see, they're not doing as well. I'm also going to vote to cut all the resources that help them do well and then be shocked they're not doing well. It's absolute insanity. But they keep pushing it and they keep pushing this rhetoric because there's more research that shows that many children in single parent or father absent homes still fare well if there's enough emotional support, shared parenting via community or other family members, and stable economic resources. In 1998, the focus on the Family launched the Loved One Out, a program devoted to so called conversion therapy. This program told LGBTQ people that with enough prayer and counseling, they could be be healed of their sexual orientation. But here's the problem. Conversion therapy is not only scientifically discredited, it's dangerous. Survivors report trauma, depression, suicidal thoughts and actions, and every major medical and psychological association has condemned it. Yet Focus on the Family used its vast radio network, conferences and political lobbying to push this agenda. They told parents that their gay child was broken. They told LGBTQ people they were sick, and they left a trail of psychological scars. A real story of the direct impact can be found in Sam Britten. Sam Britten grew up in a devout Southern Baptist missionary family church was everything shaped every aspect of their life. But as a middle schooler, Sam discovered something they couldn't ignore. They were attracted to both boys and girls. A bisexual. For most kids, the realization might bring curiosity or excitement, as entering puberty does. But for Sam, it brought fear. And I resonate so much with this fear. So when I, I was young, in high school, I was a freshman. When I was 12, and so into my junior year, senior year, I mentioned something off the cuff to my dad about not wanting to date until I was a little bit older so that I could focus on my schoolwork. And my dad chuckles and he's like, it's interesting that you bring that up. He's like, because you've never been boy crazy, I was starting to wonder if you were gay. And up until that moment, my greatest fear had been to ever get sexually assaulted or raped and get pregnant. Cause that was the worst thing you could do. And I knew I didn't want kids ever, but that was the worst thing you could be. But when my dad said, I thought you were gay, the amount of fear that went directly into my throat. Being afraid of what he was gonna do or how he was gonna react. And for the next several weeks, I spent time proving I wasn't gay because I knew that if I was gay, he'd throw me out. Out. But for Sam, in their conservative home, same sex attraction wasn't just frowned upon. It was seen as sin and an abomination. When Sam's parents found out they didn't offer love or acceptance, they turned to what conservative leaders were preaching at the time. Conversion therapy. Sam said, quote, I was told that my faith community rejected my sexuality, that I was an abomination that we had heard about in Sunday school, that I was the only gay person in the world, and that it was inevitable that I would get HIV and aids. They then said the therapist ordered me bound to a table and to have ice, heat, and electricity applied to my body. I was forced to watch clips on a television of gay men holding hands, hugging and having sex. I was supposed to associate those images with the pain I was feeling to once and for all turn me into a straight boy. In the end, it didn't work. I would say that it did, just to make the pain go away. The goal was to create an association between attraction and pain brain. To break Sam down, to force them into rejecting their own identity. Sam said later it felt less like therapy and more like torture, because that's exactly what that is. Are you joking? You're calling yourself a Christian and you're strapping somebody to a table, forcing them to watch porn while you torture them? Are you joking? All the while, the messaging was spiritual. Sam was told that gay kids in fundamentalism were told all the time that God despised their desires. They were broken, faulty, that their faith, their salvation, and their very soul was on the line. Line. But again, we don't feel that way in the church about people that commit adultery or men that abuse their wives or abuse kids. Every other week, we have a pastor or some religious leader coming out with child porn or child abuse. Give me a break. The LGBTQ are the problem. It's interesting how many arrests I see that are spiritual religious leaders. And I have yet. I have yet to see a headline of a drag queen and kids I have yet to find. The abuse didn't stop when the sessions ended. Sam was disowned, and their father threatened to kill them if they ever came back home. And imagine being a teenager already wounded, literally just got done being tortured and then cut off from the people who are supposed to protect you. Your father telling you, if you come back, I will kill you. That is what this anti LGBTQ rhetoric does. And even if you're someone who you're wrestling with this belief or you haven't deconstructed it and you struggle with it, think of the harm that you're causing. We should not be okay with any behavior that allows for the torture of children or leads to their suicide. It's insane. But here's the part that flips the table. Sam didn't disappear into silence. Sam survived, got stronger, and fought for others. Sam went on to help launch Born Perfect, a campaign of the national center for Lesbian Rights, which is dedicated to ending conversion therapy. Britain's testimony as a survivor came as the cornerstone of the movement's messaging. They spoke at the United nations describing conversion therapy as a form of torture and urging international bans. They worked with legislation to craft testimony and provide survivor voices and hearings. They became one of the first non binary, openly gender fluid people to work in. Government lobbied to ensure bills specifically prohibiting law licensed therapists from engaging in conversion therapy with minors. By 2020, more than 20 states had passed bans in due to Sam's work. Sam's story isn't just about it's not one family. It's not one set of parents. It's not one abusive therapist. It's a system. It's a system fueled by men like James Dobson through Focus on the Family. And the love won out. That's not love, but again, it ties into this Christian ideal of violent love. Dobson built a theology, framed LGBTQ people as broken when we know from psychology now that sexual orientation is something we're born with. I don't know. Did you have a moment in middle school where you were like, I wonder if I'm going to be attracted to boys or girls. Nobody does that. You just have a day where all of a sudden you realize you're really attracted to somebody or an actor on tv. He gave Dobson gave church as a script to justify coercion and shame and abuse. Sam was strapped to that table not just because of one family's fear, but decades of messaging that told Christians this was the loving thing to do. It's the same reason Christians will openly, actively mistreat people and say, well, I just don't want you to go to hell. So concerned with what happens after this life. You don't care about the hell you create in this one. And this is all built, at best, on an interpretation of Scripture that ignores ancient cultural views around sexuality and male dominance. Focus on the family's push towards conversion therapy and anti LGBTQ legislation led to so Much violence that In May of 2025, the Southern Poverty Law center this year, an organization that tracks extremist extremism, designated Focus on the Family as a hate group. Why? Because for decades, Focus wasn't just about, you know, Christianity or expressing theological beliefs. They were actively campaigning against LGBTQ rights, encouraging torture, spreading harmful myths, framing gay and trans people as threats to civilization. Dobson once called the LGBTQ movement a particularly evil lie of Satan. That kind of language doesn't just disagree with someone, it dehumanizes them. And lastly, with Focus on the Family, let's talk about money. In 2015, focus on the Family quietly changed its status with the irs. It declared itself a church. Now, why does that matter? Well, churches don't have to disclose donor information or file the same financial reports as regular non profits, which is what Focus on the Family was before a tax attorney reviewing the case called it shocking. Focus on the Family does not qualify in any way as a church. It doesn't hold regular services. It doesn't have congregants. But by declaring itself a church, it shields its donor lists and avoided transparency. Their excuse to protect the confidentiality of our donors. Translation, we don't want you to know who's bankrolling us. Focus on the Family claims to be about family values, but as we've seen, it's deeply political. In 2008, during Obama's campaign, they distributed that letter called letter from 2012. In Obama's America. It painted a dystopian future where Christians were persecuted, religious radio stations were shut down, and same sex marriage destroyed the family. The Anti Defamation League called the stunt irresponsible and inflammatory. But that was, wasn't. That was. The point was to scare conservative voters into action. And I don't know if you remember 2012, none of those things happened. None. Christians have never been persecuted en masse in this country. We're persecuting immigrants right now, not Christians. Meanwhile, their 501C4 arm, which is the Family Policy alliance, funneled millions of dollars into lobbying state campaigns and ballot measures to block LGBTQ rights and abortion acts, access. All of this funneled us into the Dobbs decision. And now Obergefell is facing the same treatment. They blurred the line between ministry and the political machine. And the separation of church and state could not be more important. Focus on the Family also dipped into the world of pseudoscience. They supported intelligent design, the idea that evolution isn't real and that life was designed by God. Again, not supported by science. But you can't have that conversation. They Co produce videos with Discovery Institute. Pushing this agenda into school. This isn't about faith. It's about undermining science education to align classrooms with their theology. And I have no issue with creation and intelligent design being in taught in schools with evolution. Teach both. Present the evidence. Let people make their own decision. Because what something that tells me that you're lying is when you don't allow other opinions, you don't allow dissent, you don't present all the evidence that tells me you're full of shit. It. And again, they left the legacy of abstinence only programs through initiatives like no Apologies and the option ultrasound program. Focus pushed abstinence only education worldwide. And in the US they funneled money to crisis pregnancy centers that discouraged abortion by offering ultrasounds, claiming women almost always chose birth after seeing ultrasounds. Not true. That's not a real thing. They. They literally just made that up. Pushing a narrative that's unsupported by evidence, manipulating emotions and achieving political ends. And remember that this wasn't just in the US this expanded abroad. In Singapore, they offered school workshops about dating and marriage. Students complained that the curriculum was very sexist. Shaming girls, promoting outdated stereotypes. The public backlash in Singapore was so bad, the program had to be pulled. In China, they partnered with government initiatives on birth control and family planning, aligning themselves with authoritation. Authoritarian population policies. Policies. Now, why would a Christian ministry cozy up to an oppressive regime they demonize just to spread its agenda? Because fundamentalist Christian organizations like authoritarian regimes. They don't have an issue with China. They want to mimic it. They don't have an issue with the Taliban. They don't like that they're Muslim. They want to mimic their political structure. Focus on the Family has always had friends in high places. In 2017, Vice President Mike Pence spoke at their 40th anniversary celebration, praised the organization, and tied its mission directly to the Trump administration's goals. And this cemented what critics already knew. Focus wasn't about families. It was about power. And so when you peel back, like the smiling family photos, the Christian radio shows and talking about helping families thrive, what do you. What do you find? You find a multi million dollar organization that misrepresents science, a ministry that traumatized LGBTQ people through conversion therapy, a nonprofit that dodged transparency by pretending to be a church, a political machine that weaponized fear and division to influence elections, an entire generation of kids that were viciously beat by the people that should have been nurturing to them, and an entire generation of women with harmed sexuality, shame, insecurity dysfunction because they were told the only thing that mattered about them was their virginity. Dobson's influence extends far beyond his books. Through Focus on the Family, he helped build the religious rights infrastructure that fueled culture wars for decades. His teachings normalized violence against children under the guise of discipline and promoted the church protecting both physical and sexual child abusers. He adamantly reinforced patriarchal structures that silenced women's voices and experiences, which also allowed for the abuse of women to be consistently swept under the rug. He didn't even adhere to a woman being able to divorce her husband for infidelity, but only if she could prove substantial abuse. Shamed sex. He shamed sexuality, fostered purity, culture trauma, harming entire generations of young girls. He was a key figure in spreading anti LGBTQ stigma, delaying progress for equality and fueling discriminatory laws. Galvanized evangelical politics, embedding Christian nationalism into the GOP platform, leading us down the path to Christian nationalism and authoritarianism we are in today. We are in an authoritarian state. I do not want to mince words about that. We have direct violations of the Constitution happening, direct attacks on the freedom of speech we have now. Stephen Miller announced today that Democrats are not a political party, but they're a domestic extremist group that functionally deems Democrats as a terrorist organization, which is an authoritarian tactic to be able to use force against your political opponents. We're there. We're in the bad place. And Dobson in large part built the Christian nationalist rhetoric that all of this is built on. And even after retiring from Focus on the family in 2010, Dobson's legacy lives on in organizations like the Family Research Council and in the broader evangelical movement that's influencing American politics. And last week he passed in good riddance. I hope that his hateful and harmful policies die with him. May he spend eternity paying for the damage he caused and may all of us be brave enough to heal, deconstruct, and undo the damage that we both participated in and maybe were inflicted upon us. And to end today, I want to read an email that was sent to me from someone regarding James Dobson. Monty, thank you so much for all the things you give. I am actively deconstructing and freeing myself from these harmful indoctrinations. This resonated so hard with my childhood. I know my parents were influenced by Dobson and we listened to Focus on the Family during car rides to school. School. One particular radio episode when he goes into great detail about the crucifixion was so traumatic to me and contributed to some of my worst nightmares. I'VE ever had that I still think about today. And I'm 39. I was brought up in purity culture a la the assembly of God style, where we went through a worth the weight program that ended with our parents giving us these coin purity rings that said worth the weight on one side and the other side said I waited so that you could flip the coin in the ring after you married and gave your virginity to your husband. I also remember the heavy hatred of homosexuality making me intensely afraid of hell and damnation since I had homosexual knowings as early as the age of three when my dad found me kissing my, quote, wife while playing house on the back porch with a neighbor girl. So much so that I just literally a few weeks ago at the age of 39, was finally able to confess to my parents that I'm a lesbian. After having a secret family, my partner and her son for the last 15 years, I had an intense fear of rejection and being disowned. And needless to say, my therapist, I started formal therapy a formal year a year ago is the fucking goat in my eyes. Thank you for all that you do to validate my experience around my childhood traumas. I also love McGee and me as a kid and I remember as a kid who loved to draw, wanting a desk setup just like the boy in the show. Feel free to reference anything I've said for whatever content you create. I'm also available for any clarification. Thank you so much for the work that you put in fellow metalhead Ariel Boone. Ariel, thank you for sharing your story and I hope that your parents heal that journey with you and welcome you. And I hope that everyone listening. I hope that this episode is validating to some of the things that you felt and that you experienced growing up. Deconstruction has been deeply healing for me in those ways. Recognizing abuse as abuse, recognizing what should never have been allowed to happen to me or my brother or my friends. Recognizing that for so many women I know that grew up with sexual dysfunction, I still experience it. I'm. I'm restarting therapy specifically around sex because there are some things that I cannot shake from this. And I hope that it's healing for you and I encourage you to dive deeper and heal those things and get into therapy and understand that no, you shouldn't have been hit. And if you were the victim of grooming or assault or abuse, it was not your fault and you didn't deserve that. It was. It was nothing you did. It wasn't what you were wearing, it wasn't what you did. It wasn't being in the room alone with a guy. It was his fault. And to those parents who participated in some of these movements, give yourself grace, too. But make sure that you go to your adult children and you apologize. We can start to rebuild these things if we undo them in the first place. I'm so proud of this community and the questions and the healing that we're doing together. And I hope that this is just one more step on the way. And I will see you next week on Flipping Tables.