Jesus would NOT do this

Another day, another example of the moral bankruptcy of the James Dobson gang.

For those few of you not familiar with Dobson's particular brand of twisted faith-based logic, he's the head of Focus on the Family, a national organization devoted to holding back the tide of liberty, fraternity and equality through the promotion of patriarchal, homophobic and dishonest ideas that contradict science, decency and common sense.

Until today, his most recent breach of what most of us would consider common human morality came in the form of a screed claiming that "children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father." He cited research, by author, in support of his claim. It quickly turned out he was lying. The specific studies he mentioned made no such claims, and in fact, a major review by the American Psychological Association has concluded "there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents."

As far as I can tell, Dobson has not apologized for slandering the good name of the researchers whose work he misrepresented by 180 degrees. So that's the kind of guy we're dealing with today, when we read in The New York Times and elsewhere that

Leaders of several conservative Christian groups have sent a letter urging the National Association of Evangelicals to force its policy director in Washington to stop speaking out on global warming.

Dobson and his ilk made it clear months ago they were not happy with the NEA's decision to pay attention to the single biggest public policy challenge of our (or, arguably, any) time. But fair enough -- a Christian organization surely should be free to focus on more Christian issues, right? And I will admit to certain amount of trepidation when it comes to encouraging religious leaders to get involved in any public debate, considering how much damage they did in the last couple of presidential elections

So what is it that Dobson, former GOP presidential candidate Gary L. Bauer; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich, now chairman of something called American Values; and 21 other upstanding executives of organizations that make a claim to moral leadership would rather good Christians do? As Christians, perhaps they want to focus their family on poverty, helping the dispossessed and empowering the underprivileged? You know, the sort of thing to which Christ (usually) devoted his words and actions.

If you thought that, you would be wrong. Instead, Dobson et al are worried that the NAE and others

"are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the eaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

This is not a surprise, of course. But it is a stark reminder of just how out of touch the "Christian" right is with the very values Christians are supposed to hold dear.

Indeed, I don't think it's a stretch to argue that climate change is a fundamentally moral issue. It is not incidental that the peoples most vulnerable to the drought, storms, rising sea level that will accompany a warming planet tend to be the poorest and least powerful members of our species -- the very people Jesus allegedly said we should be concentrating our efforts to help. (You don't have to call yourself a Christian to share the core values of the faith, which transcend religious and secular distinctions.)

And just in case you were wondering, Dobson and his colleagues are just as out of touch with the science of climate change. The letter in question posits that "It does appear that the earth is warming, but the disagreement focuses on why it might be happening..." which is just plain silly, given the recent policy summary from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts the chance that we're not responsible at 10 percent or less (and would have made it just 5 percent if it wasn't for the refusal of Saudi Arabia and China to play fair.)

There is a ray of hope in the letter, however. The signatories agree that "the issue should be addressed scientifically and not theologically."

Well, Hallelujah.

global warming
Religious Right