10 Things You Should Know About Focus On The Family

Focus on the Family claims its mission is to help families thrive. Yet to anyone paying attention, it’s clear the organization is focused on one specific kind of family, and instead spends a lot of time, energy and money advocating against equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families. In fact, the organization suggests that marriage equality will bring the destruction of civilization, and it has referred to the children of same-sex couples as “human guinea pigs.” At a recent conference in Nashville, two Focus On The Family leaders showed an improved tone on talking about LGBT issues. This of course is a positive step forward, but the organization and its leaders continue to promote many dangerous ideas, practices and programs that cause real harm to LGBT people and their families. If Focus's leaders truly want to practice what some among their ranks are beginning to preach, then the organization needs to reject and denounce these damaging positions.

Over the years Focus On The Family has made anti-LGBT activism a cornerstone of it’s “pro-family” cause. Take a look at 10 things you should know about Focus On The Family:

1. Focus On The Family has raised over $515 Million over the past five years, making it one of the most well funded anti-LGBT organizations in America. They invest in public education campaigns against LGBT equality, while their related organization CitizenLink supports radical anti-LGBT candidates who work against basic civil rights and legal protections.

2. Focus On The Family promotes the harmful and discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” claiming, “just as there are many paths that may lead a person to experience same-sex attractions, there are likewise multiple ways out.” For years, they were behind Love Won Out, a national tour preaching that same-sex attraction is ‘preventable and treatable.’

3. In fact, even after the leading national organization promoting “conversion therapy” – Exodus International – shuttered their doors and apologized for the harm they had caused, Focus On The Family continues to endorse junk science rejected by every major medical and mental health organization to this day, blaming molestation, divorce, and straight up “rebellion against societal norms” for people’s sexual orientation. 

4. Focus On The Family opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt, saying the children of gay and lesbian parents are “human guinea pigs” in the “same-sex family experiment.” 

5. Focus On The Family believes that they know better than psychiatrists – actual doctors – when it comes to counseling transgender people. They called trans people “mentally ill” suffering from a “devastating condition.” They also believe that living according to their affirmed gender identity ignores reality “like Cinderella in a fantasy world.”

6. Focus On The Family claims the reason more LGBT young people are unhappy is because the Human Rights Campaign “encouraged them to self-identify as gay or transgender.”

7. Focus On The Family accused anti-bullying programs in schools of “promoting homosexuality” and creating “a system ripe for reverse discrimination.” They even created a whole website to help parents fight against programs teaching tolerance towards LGBT students.

8. Focus On the Family declared that anti- workplace discrimination legislation “must be stopped” because if it passed, employers might just face consequences for firing LGBT people for no other reason than their “moral convictions.”

9. Focus On The Family wants business owners to have the right to turn away LGBT customers just because they believe their religion requires them to oppose their very existence.

10. Focus On The Family thinks being LGBT is “a particularly evil lie of Satan.” President Jim Daly even says marriage equality means the destruction of civilization.

James Dobson is no longer relevant in marriage equality fight

Why does the subject of marriage equality turn people like religious leader James Dobson into one-note drama queens?

In the clip below of an interview, Dobson talks with Billy Hallowell, the Faith and culture editor at Glenn Beck's "The Blaze and goes off negatively about marriage equality:

Poor Dobson. He pushes that ridiculous line about marriage equality destroying culture without realizing that time has passed him by. It's no longer 2004 when he helped to command and direct the opposers of marriage equality to victories and spotlight.

This is the new age when folks have realized that portents of doom about marriage equality were just lies fueled by either cynical folks out to make a buck through the exploitation of religious beliefs or self-righteous, conceited folks who have actually have no clue.

I think that Dobson is the latter, but it really doesn't matter which type he is. Either way, he come across as just plain tired.

AFA Refuses Donation With Milk Stamp

The Wire reports: 

How much do anti-gay groups hate the new Harvey Milk stamps from the U.S. Postal Service? One organization refused to even open a mailed donation to their cause using one such stamp as postage. Staying true to their announcement that they would boycott all mail with the Milk stamps, the American Family Association toldThe Wire that the organization had mailed back our attempted $5 donation to their anti-gay group unopened. Speaking to The Wire, AFA's Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fischer said that the very existence of the Harvey Milk stamp was akin to "honoring Jeffrey Dahmer on a postage stamp designed to honor the culinary arts." That's because Fischer and the AFA, citing a line from a biography of Milk, believe that Milk was a sexual predator. "He is not somebody that should ever be honored on a postage stamp," Fischer said.

Maybe the Wire shouldn't have announced the attempt two weeks ago? Focus On The Family and the Family Research Council both processed Milk-stamped donations sent by theWire

Focus On The Family: More Christian Tips On How To Bully LGBT Students

As I noted last month, Focus On The Family is gearing up for their so-called Day Of Dialogue, which was created several years ago to counter GLSEN's anti-bullying Day Of Silence, which takes place this year on April 11th. Previous Day Of Silence protests have included walkouts by Christian students, protests by church groups, and email campaigns to public school districts. Day Of Silence walkouts were promoted again last year by the American Family Association, which issued a call to its millions of followers, telling parents to pull their kids out of school and to write complaining letters to teachers and principals.

Focus On The Family has created a website where students can download proselytizing flyers to be handed out at public schools on the Day Of Dialogue. As you can see above, the flyers laughably claim that their campaign opposes bullying and feature a QR code which links to their "ex-gay" brainwashing clips. FOTF has also posted several pre-event training videos, such as the new one below, in which Christian students role play how to "respectfully" tell gay kids that they are bound for an eternity in a lake of fire. But that's not bullying in the world of anti-gay hate groups, that's doing those confronted children a favor.

Focus on the Family: LGBT Nondiscrimination Policies Discriminate Against Christians

In a new video, Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink host Stuart Shepard explains how when there’s a “tie” between Christians and other protected classes, the Christians always “lose.”

Shepard uses the example of the Oregon bakery owners who were found guilty of unlawfully discriminating against a gay couple when they cited their religious beliefs in their refusal to bake a wedding cake for said couple.

ThinkProgress breaks down Shepard’s faulty logic: