Cash-Strapped Dobson Empire Cuts Staff After Lavishly Funding Anti-Gay Campaign In California

[madfloridian]

From the website of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Focus on the Family group went to California and with other "Christian" groups spent huge amounts to ram through Proposition 8.

Focus On Unemployment: Cash-Strapped Dobson Empire Cuts Staff After Lavishly Funding Anti-Gay Campaign In California

According to a report from The Colorado Independent, even more layoffs are to be announced next week. It is a difficult time for many Americans who are without jobs this holiday season, and we sympathize with these employees and their families.

Our only question is, if FOF was on such a tight budget, wouldn’t it have behooved Dr. Dobson to remember his employees first — whom he claims to be shedding tears for– before pumping $539,000 in cash and $83,000 in non-monetary support into passing California’s anti-gay marriage amendment, Proposition 8?

According to The Independent, the half-million-plus FOF spent on passing Proposition 8 is equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29, 133.

Proposition 8 passed 52 to 48 percent Nov. 4, but civil rights groups have now taken the issue into the California courts. The California Supreme Court ruled in May that the state constitution grants same-sex couples the same access to civil marriage as opposite-sex couples. Now the state’s high court will have to decide whether this right can be taken away by this referendum process.

Many are questioning FOF’s priorities.

Poor James Dobson...maybe he has too many battles going on at the same time. After all so many of us evil libruls are plotting to destroy his Christmas.

Dobson's Christmas Police

But Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family has a different worry: Dobson and his band of Religious Right "Christmas Police" are fretting that Americans might accidentally shop at a store that fails to use the proper religiously correct terminology. Thus, they've prepared a handy list for us to use.

Back in April, FOF sent letters to the heads of 33 leading retailers, demanding that they use the term "Christmas" in their 2008 end-of-year catalogs. Let me emphasize that: They did this in April. Easter wasn't even over yet, and these cranks were obsessing about catalogs that wouldn't even be issued for another seven months. I'm trying to imagine the rolling of eyes that must have taken place at some of these companies when FOF's letters about Christmas arrived just as the spring flowers were pushing up through the soil. My guess is that most of letters were tossed, because as of Nov. 11, FOF had not received replies from 22 companies (among them Target, K-Mart, JC Penney, Home Depot, Borders, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Sears, Lands' End and L.L. Bean).

Eight firms caved immediately: Best Buy, Cabela's, Kohl's, Lowe's, Nordstrom, Pier 1, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart.

The Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy replied to the FOF missive, but, the group soberly reports, "did not convey a clear commitment to use the term `Christmas.' Rather, they communicated their intent to approach their marketing in broad and diverse terms."

His agendas are so narrow and there is no cheer or happiness in them. We should have known that he when wrote years ago about beating his little Dachshund. That should have been a point in which people questioned such leadership.

[grannylib]

1. Dobson is such a tool. What a pathetic representative of "Christianity."

It's people like that who make some of us reluctant to state that we ARE Christian, for fear of being associated with his kind of narrow-minded bigotry and stupidity. He's not a Christian; he's a Pharisee.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. He should repair to his prayer closet.

Then some person or people of good will could nail the door shut, chain heavy weights to said closet and throw it in the nearest large body of water, at the deepest part.

And hope to hell his close friend, Cthulhu, doesn't decide to save his hateful ass.

[antipode]

9. I'd like to lock him and Warren in a room...and throw away the room

...

[sakabatou]

2. ...

[Kittycat]

3. Dobson should keep praying.

At this rate, he'll be out of business before he can launch next year's war on christmas. First rain prayers for the DNC turn in to Hurricane's for the RNC... now this.

[XanaDUer]

4. I will make it my business to shop at those stores.

I'm still lucky enough to have a job. I already shop at most of them, esp. Banana Republic, which has great clothing.

Screw FOF.

[DesertFlower]

6. i shop at Old Navy

and The Gap.

[BOSSHOG]

5. And he represents Christ on Earth???

For his sorry asses sake, he will live forever, cause there ain't joy for his soul when he dies.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. The blogger expresses sympathy for the laid off employees - these employees

supported an empire that has as its goal the reduction of rights for women and gays!

[NJmaverick]

10. This is certainly good news

I hope he goes belly up bankrupt. I suspect he was financed by a few right wing dirt bags who were hurt by their fellow repukes greed and corruption. No more $$$ left for rightwing tools like Dobson.

[Hawkeye-X]

11. Colorado should encourage him to pay for shit that's all over Colorado Springs.

Oh, like "Focus on the Family Welcome Center" sign on both sides of I-25, and the "Ronald Reagan Highway" - I bet it was Dobson's idea.

FotF needs to be Chapter 7 by the time we're done with him within the end of next year.

And the FotF nuts move out of the state into some dump like Idaho or Wyoming, just stay the hell out of Colorado. Thanks.

Hawkeye-X

[donco6]

13. Don't forget their subterfuge of the Air Force Academy.

It's a national disgrace.

[madfloridian]

14. I don't think I knew about the Air Force Academy?

Could you fill me in?

[MountainLaurel]

19. Here are a few articles to give you the run-down

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/us/25academies.html

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/22/airforce.religion/index.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_363.shtml

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/11/20/623/25553

[madfloridian]

21. Thanks! from the 4th article...very interesting. Wow!

"Let's hope James Dobson and his fellow radical evangelicals are crying in their eggnog tonight, after losing a round at the Air Force Academy in their home town of Colorado Springs. A 'Jesus banner' will be taken down from the team's locker room. This was no ordinary banner. The message, part of something called the "competitor's creed," read:

"I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

The banner was put up Wednesday by the team's coach, Fisher DeBerry, who agreed Friday to take it down. The Academy seems to be taking the right course. It has warned staffers against including biblical verses as taglines on Academy e-mail. It disapproved of cadets using Academy e-mail to urge seeing Passion of the Christ. And on Thursday, the Superintendant announced the Academy would begin religious tolerance training.

Outgoing Air Force Secretary James Roche issued a statement about it. Note the use of the positive vs. the negative. Instead of saying intolerance won't be permitted, he says:

"Our policy is clear. Tolerance of gender, racial, ethnic and religious diversity is required at our Air Force," Roche said"

[MountainLaurel]

25. Religious extremists flying airplanes

Where have we heard that story before?

[gich]

32. Some perspective..

$600,000 is not going to bankrupt Focus on Family. They score upwards of $150 million per year. They are financially sound.

[Bette Noir]

12. FoF spending itself out of existence?

There is a God!

[madfloridian]

15. Third straight year the group has laid off people.

Yet they keep fighting rights for gays and women and fighting to protect Christmas from liberals.

"But FOF views supporting Proposition 8 as a top priority. In September, after FOF announced layoffs for another 46 people (this is the third straight year the organization has made layoffs), FOF Chief Operating Officer Glenn Williams said, “It is certainly heartbreaking that in this case fulfilling that duty means having to say goodbye to some members of our Focus family, but industry realities leave us no alternative. We are accountable to our donors to spend their money in the most cost-effective and productive manner possible.”

These are the sad priorities of this organization. And it’s even sadder that FOF is still campaigning away against retailers who refuse to refer to Christmas in their advertising even while knowing that so many of its own will be struggling with unemployment during the holidays"

[vinylsolution]

16. Colorado rejoices!

First the fall of Ted Haggard, now Dobson's empire of hate is being flushed away.

We could use the land for a Salvation Army store, and actually help people.

The Colorado Springs Gazette (aka - the moonies) will have nothing left to write about, ha ha!

So good riddance.... when the time finally comes. And it can't come soon enough.

[jmowreader]

28. Oh my. Not the Salvation Army. Seriously.

The Salvation Army is one of the harder-core fundamentalist groups out there. The only thing that redeems them--and it goes a long way--is their Bible contains James 2. (That's the part about faith without works being dead.)

[yardwork]

17. How much money will Dobson pocket himself this year?

[condoleeza]

18. Great question, as I don't imagine James and family will be hurting anytime soon.

Having driven by their headquarters, it's pretty clear that this man, who actually wrote a pretty decent book that I read as a young mother who was desperately seeking advice on parenting, has succumbed to the usual pitfall of the Christian. He believed he had God's ear and voice and, wow, it made him rich too! A pretty intoxicating mix.

[gratuitous]

20. You know, that occurred to me

And I didn't want to be so crass as to suggest that "Dr." Dobson might look at a little pay cut before throwing people out of work. Well, we'll certainly have an opportunity to see what sort of dedication "Dr." Dobson has to his "ministry" if it isn't bringing him six or seven figures annually.

[Initech]

22. Fundies like Dobson are evil motherfuckers. They make me sick.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Now, here's what I don't get. I believe Dobson is basically in it for the money and the power.

He couldn't give a shit about Prop 8 or anything else, except as tools he can use to keep frothing up his drooling followers with. Sure, Prop 8 is a great fundraising gimmick, just like anti-abortion csmpaigns. But, having gone and raised all that money, why would he actually blow it on Prop 8 campaign? Why not find a way to keep his fat, filthy paws on it?

Then a light dawns. Maybe he spent large amounts of that money in ways that cause it to disappear from the books and circle around back into his own pockets. Like if he owns a few TV stations where a lot of advertising money was spent or something. Now, I have now way or really checking this stuff out, but maybe this whole business was some kind of setup to screw his own staff and walk away with the loot.

[supernova]

24. Some Just Deserts

methinks.

It would be a good thing if all these RW prosperity preachers started to go under like every other house of cards business that has sprung up under the Repubs.

[muntrv]

26. Dobson, why don't you live within your means? SUCK IT UP, CRYBABY!!!

[rucky]

27. I knew there was an upside to all this.

C'mon haters - put your money where your mouths are!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

29. My sole regret. . .

That Dobson didn't put all their assets into Madoff investment.

Now, that would be ironic justice.

[Lost River Ledger]

30. Not so fast......

Don't put a nail in that coffin yet.....

Its the very thing you note (in his word, the "radical homosexual agenda") that will he will use to raise this phoenix from the ashes. Its a fine tradition they have.....no need to worry about the employees, as most are god fearing women, they will enjoy being in their rightful place during the holidays....in the home.....

[TWiley]

31. Tax the bastards ..... they are PAC's, and not churches

[The Hope Mobile]

33. Karma nt

[Gwendolyn]

34. I'm sure the out-of-work bigots were happy to sacrifice their jobs for such a good cause.

It's all about sacrifice, isn't it, unless of course you happen to be at the top of the zealot bigot pile.

Just a little footnote though... that Christian Police article pokes fun at the Dobson org for starting to harass companies in April. Actually, since most big companies begin work on their Christmas catalogues immediately following Easter into early May, (planning inventory, catalog artwork, etc) it implies that he's quite shrewd and knows exactly what he's doing.