Despite endorsing Coburn and Randall Terry, Dobson denied being "in favor of people who want to execute abortionists"
SUMMARY: Focus on the Family's James C. Dobson accused Harper's Magazine of "say[ing] the most crazy things" for reporting that he is "in favor of people who want to execute abortionists." In fact, Dobson has endorsed at least two political candidates, Randall Terry and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who have expressed support for executing "abortionists."
During an interview on the March 8 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Focus on Family founder James C. Dobson accused Harper's Magazine of "say[ing] the most crazy things" for reporting that Dobson is "in favor of people who want to execute abortionists." The May 30, 2005, Harper's article, to which Dobson is apparently referring, reported that Dobson "has backed political candidates who called for the execution of abortion providers." But Dobson's suggestion that the Harper's assertion is false is itself false: Dobson has in fact endorsed at least two political candidates, Randall Terry and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who have expressed support for the execution of "abortionists."
The Harper's article, written by Chris Hedges and titled "Soldiers of Christ II: Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters," featured a brief biography of Dobson, whom Hedges describes as "perhaps the most powerful figure in the Dominionist movement." While profiling Dobson, Hedges wrote:
He calls for a constitutional amendment to permit prayer in the public schools. He sponsors a group called "Love Won Out," which holds monthly conferences around the country for those "suffering" from same-sex attraction. He likens the proponents of gay marriage to the Nazis, has backed political candidates who called for the execution of abortion providers, defines embryonic stem-cell research as "state-funded cannibalism," and urges Christian parents to pull their children out of public-school systems.
In response, Dobson pointed to Hedges's article as evidence that "secular progressives" are becoming "more and more angry," and "are determined to lash out at those of us who are most visible in that area." Dobson continued, stating, "Harper's Magazine actually said that I am in favor of people who want to execute abortionists. I mean, they just say the most crazy things."
But in endorsing the political campaigns of Coburn and Terry, Dobson endorsed candidates who support the execution of "abortionists." In 2004, Dobson endorsed Coburn in his bid for Oklahoma's open Senate seat. Coburn told the Associated Press on July 10, 2004, "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life." In announcing his endorsement, Dobson called Coburn the "single best leader I have ever worked with on the critical moral and family issues that have been at the heart of my own work." Coburn won the election.
In 1998, Dobson endorsed the failed candidacy of Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and the Society for Truth and Justice, for New York's 26th Congressional District seat. Terry has repeatedly called for the "salvation or the death" of Dr. Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado. A February 2, 1992, report on CBS' 60 Minutes showed Terry and his followers praying outside the clinic. On the video, Terry stated: "But pray that this family will either be converted to God or that calamity will strike him." The New York Times reported on August 14, 1993, that "[i]n his radio appearances, Mr. Terry said of Dr. Hern: 'I hope someday he is tried for crimes against humanity, and I hope he is executed.' " Another 60 Minutes segment, airing on August 7, 1994, showed Terry again entreating his followers "to pray for either the salvation or the death" of Hern.
According to a September 28, 1998, profile of Terry in The Nation by David Corn, during a campaign speech, Terry reportedly stated, "When I or people like me are running the country, [abortion providers] better flee because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you." Corn noted that Terry "has received the official blessing of James Dobson ... who does not usually endorse candidates." According to a May 14, 1998, Roll Call report by Norah O'Donnell, Dobson "endorsed half a dozen firebrand Republicans" in the 1998 elections, including Terry, and "provided Terry with a 30-second radio endorsement." Terry lost in the Republican primary. He is currently running for a seat in the Florida state Senate.
From the March 8 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: I have never seen the level of hatred coming at -- you know, basically, there is some from the traditionalists to the secular progressives. There is some; we have to be honest. But, overwhelmingly, the hatred coming from the SP's [secular progressives] to the -- to people like you and me, who they perceive to be enemies, I've never seen anything like it.
DOBSON: Well, my interpretation of that is that they are losing, generally, throughout the culture, and they're getting more and more angry all the time. I mean, they obviously have somebody different in the White House than they wanted, and leadership in the House, and leadership in the Senate. And now, the Supreme Court's changing. The culture is shifting, I believe, to the right. And -- and they are more and more angry, and they are determined to lash out at those of us who are most visible in that area. Harper's Magazine actually said that I am in favor of people who want to execute abortionists. I mean, they just say the most crazy things.
Let me guess...the craziest things Harper's Magazine said in their article were probably direct quotes from Dobson himself.
...is swiftly replacing "liberal" as the new pariah of our culture. It's rather incredible, but soon it will be common to malign those who wish to have a separation of church and state.
After O'Reilly/Gibson & co. have succeeded in shaming the secularists, who will be next?
Centrists, beware.
O'REILLY: "... we have to be honest."
When will he begin, exactly?
That honesty does not fall within the Republican definition of "traditional family values."
"It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (James Dobson -- Dare to Discipline, p.7.)
He's a nice guy. What if the fetus is misbehaving? Should the mother be beaten? I'm confused.
I don't believe in executing abortionists. However, I do believe in aborting executioners.
These people call themselves pro-LIFE. How about pro-HYPOCRISY? No one who calls themselves pro-choice advocates less choice. Name ONE choice-driven issue that pro-choice people expressly rally against. There isn't one for one simple reason: the upper limit of pro-choice is choice. That's as high as it goes. Self-determination. There's no agenda to FORCE others to adhere to a mythic standard of conduct determined by total strangers. Do or do not. But the “pro-life” movement, since their cause by its very definition is aimed at inhibiting another's freedom, attracts fringe lunatics who are willing to KILL to enforce their beliefs.
The expression PRO-LIFE is being used because the conservative mainstream media wants to misrepresent the debate, and skew it in favor of the right.
How's that for shocking news?
Well put. If a woman is considering having an abortion and chooses not to, then pro-lifers and pro-choicers are both satisfied. Unfortunately, your standard pro-lifer doesn't understand that: he thinks that a pro-choicer is keenly disappointed if she chooses to keep her baby. (I know I've heard Pat Robertson make that claim, and that was before his recent manifestations of senility.)
I'll restate my own position: I wish all women had the right to choose, and would all choose No. Simple, a bit naive perhaps, but that's my stand.
Name you one choice that pro-choice people refuse to allow? Easy. The baby's choice as to whether she wants to live.
It has been said that all it takes for evil to flourish is to have good men do nothing.
Taking that to heart in the past five years I can say with no unadulterated spin that I find these Christian Taliban as the most troubling and destructive elements in our times.
Having earnestly hijacked the republican party I ask anyone reading this to do some reading on the dominionists and do what you can to keep the Church State seperation intact as our founding fathers had wished.
To read more
[link to www.theocracywatch.org]
[link to www.theocracywatch.org]
[link to www.theocracywatch.org] (elimination of social security)
An insightful article [link to www.yuricareport.com]
I've been watching this trend myself for some time. The Religious Right Troglodytes and the Country Club Republicans have formed a sinister alliance that will drag the country back to the Nineteenth Century if they aren't stopped. The Country Clubbers use the Trogs to get themselves elected so they can fatten their own pockets and starve the public treasury; the Trogs then use the grateful Country Clubbers to enact their regressive policies like teaching Creationism in the schools, plastering their fairy tales on our public buildings, and outlawing gay marriage.
They are actually close to success; if they can replace one more Supreme Court Justice with a Right Wing Neanderthal, the downward slide will be rapid and sickening.
The problem with your concern is that our founding fathers were very much of a mind to establish public morality in our country via public religion. "This consitution is fit to govern only a moral and religious people...it is wholly unfit to govern any other..." --guess who?
Because public morality has become amoral and public religion has become areligious, the public fabric of decency has become non-existent and barbaric. Are you aware that in the secularist utopia of Holland, it is now being formally legalized to "euthanize" children that parents don't want? People hung at Nuremberg for that. Shall we dig them up and apologize to them?
You are so afraid of public religion and morality, yet they are the very bulwarks in this nation which have protected and defended the innocent, the weak, the disposessed. Public religion and public morality are the forces which freed the slaves in the 1800's, freed us from aparteid in the 1960's, and will put an end to dismembering children in the womb in the early 21st century - no matter how convenient that practice is for the powerful.
that i am in favor of people who want execute abortionists". they actually said it because you actually are. will we see mr. o'reilly point out this lie? or does harpers join in the company of far left wing web sites that actually offer the actual quotes of what was said.
Speaking of rage from his enemies, very hypocritical.
Has anyone seen more unjustified anger from an 'SP' than O'Reilly?
The problem with your article is the distinction between lawful and unlawful, between appealing to God or appealing to man. The outrage that you express is implicitly that, supposedly, the conservatives you object to support the *murder* of abortionists - that is the illegal, unlawful, vigilante killing of those who committ abortion. That is the carefully crafted innuendo you try hard to create though you work hard to not state this explicitly. But, based only on the facts you present in your article, if they are true, neither Terry nor Dobson nor Coburn support anything of the kind. In fact, their position is the opposite.
God, in whom they believe, is the arbiter of all life and death. He is the arbiter of the innocent and the criminal's life and death. All of these gentlemen hold positions which appeal first to God, then to law. You quote some as praying for the salvation or death, via the hand of God, of an abortionist. But this is the antithesis of vigilante murder. It is actively and publicly supporting the rational position that man does not have the authority over life or death of the innocent and so must appeal to God alone who does, in fact, exercise this authority on a daily basis. If man perceives a great and capital offense has been perpetrated, his lawful recourse is to pray to God, to appeal to due process. Can you disagree?
Secondly, we note an appeal to law. The conservatives refer to conducting trial, due process, and then executing the accused. Again, this is the antithesis of murder. Murder is the extrajudicial, personal act, which rages against the principle of objectively established guilt. These men are saying that only via a lawful process should an abortionist be put to death. One or more of these individuals may advocate the death penalty for an abortionist who inserts a spike into the head of a nine-month term child in the birth canal - but if they are presenting their position as with deference to the due process constraint, what really can you say? You may disagree and think that abortionists who put suction tubes into the skulls of full term babies in the birth canal should be allowed to make half a million dollars a year, but the concept of barbarity is one which flouts man's and nature's laws. Clearly the conservatives here are not advocating defiance of God or due process. The only thing left then is that you, the author of the article, object to what - the death penalty? If you object to the death penalty for a murderer carried out by due process, then do you object more to partial birth abortion carried out against the innocent with no trial at all?
So, we find that the conservatives are appealing to God or appealing to due process as the means for carrying out the death penalty - which they have a right to hold an opinion on - and this is proper. You may not agree with them, but they are hardly advocating taking matters into their own hands like terrorists - which is the tar and feather you try desperately to, and fail to, stick on them.