Researcher Nails Dobson

I don't know what the editors were thinking, maybe just trying to stir up controversy, but they let Family Blah Blah guy James Dobson soil the pages of Time this week with an editorial about Mary Cheney having a baby.

He started out acknowledging that the lesbian baby dilemma is a trap for people like him:

A number of social conservatives, myself included, have recently been asked to respond to the news that Mary Cheney, the Vice President's daughter, is pregnant with a child she intends to raise with her lesbian partner. Implicit in this issue is an effort to get us to criticize the Bush Administration or the Cheney family. But the concern here has nothing to do with politics. It is about what kind of family environment is best for the health and development of children, and, by extension, the nation at large. Two Mommies Is One Too Many

It's a little predictable, but Dobson believes there should be a father in the family. OK, I guess we would've guessed that.

So he goes on a little bit. Quotes some research:

According to educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, mothers tend to stress sympathy, grace and care to their children, while fathers accent justice, fairness and duty. Moms give a child a sense of hopefulness; dads provide a sense of right and wrong and its consequences. Other researchers have determined that boys are not born with an understanding of "maleness." They have to learn it, ideally from their fathers.

It might strike you as a little strange, if you followed these things, that a traditionalist like Dobson would be quoting the founder of "difference feminism," a researcher who has long argued that women's values and morals differ from men's, and who has emphasized that the Dobsonistic patriarchal form of "justice morality" has its equal in the "ethics of care," a feminine morality that treats relationships as primary.

It did strike Dr. Gilligan as strange. And she wants him to stop misquoting her.

Wayne Besen has the letter she sent Dobson:

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future. I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine. Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.

From what I understand, this is not the first time you have manipulated research in pursuit of your goals. This practice is not in the best interest of scientific inquiry, nor does bearing false witness serve your purpose of furthering morality and strengthening the family.

Finally, there is nothing in my research that would lead you to draw the stated conclusions you did in the Time article. My work in no way suggests same-gender families are harmful to children or can’t raise these children to be as healthy and well adjusted as those brought up in traditional households.

I trust that this will be the last time my work is cited by Focus on the Family.

Sincerely,

Carol Gilligan, PhD
New York University, Professor

I am somewhat pessimistic about Dobson actually getting the message here. If he had to be truthful, had to stop bearing false witness, had to stop taking research out of context to support discriminatory goals, what would be left?