James Dobson, a politically influential child psychologist who started a radio show counseling Christians on how to be good parents, founded the conservative ministry Focus on the Family and was long a campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89.
His death was confirmed by the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Dobson started Focus on the Family in 1977, which had more than 1,000 employees at its peak and gave him a platform to weigh in on legislation, advise White House panels and advocate against laws to ban conversion therapy to “cure” gay people.
He became a force in the 1980s for pushing conservative Christian ideals in American politics alongside fundamentalist giants like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. He campaigned for bringing religious conservatives into the political mainstream, and in 1989, Falwell called Dobson a rising star. Decades later, he served on President Donald Trump ’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board.
Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the institute that bears his name. He continued with the Family Talk radio show, which is nationally syndicated and is carried by 1,500 radio outlets with more than half a million listeners weekly, according to the institute.
“Dr. Dobson’s impact endures through the many lives he touched, the families he strengthened, and the unshakable faith he proclaimed,” his family said in a statement announcing his death.
Gary Bauer, a senior vice president at Dobson’s institute, called him a “pioneer” who helped families in a world of shifting values. Dobson interviewed President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985, thanking him for concentrating on issues important to families.
An anti-pornography crusader, Dobson recorded a video interview with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before his January 24, 1989, execution in Florida. Bundy told Dobson that exposure to pornography helped fuel his sexual urges to a point that he looked for satisfaction by mutilating, killing and raping women.
At the time, Dobson’s Focus on the Family program was broadcast daily on 1,200 radio stations.
Months after the execution, Bundy’s attorney James Coleman downplayed the Dobson exchange in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I think that was a little bit of Ted telling the minister what he wanted to hear and Ted offering an explanation that would exonerate him personally,” Coleman told The Associated Press in 1989. “I had heard that before and I told Ted I never accepted it.”
Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, as well as their children, Danae and Ryan, daughter-in-law Laura, and two grandchildren, his family’s statement said.
