Focus on the Family’s complete track record of anti-LGBTQ+ hate

This story was originally published by Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ focused investigative news outlet.Focus on the Family (FOTF) is a Christian ministry with a half-century history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy. Through the years, they have worked with the biggest American politicians and lawmakers to pass or maintain laws that treat LGBTQ people as second-class citizens. The nonprofit, which today amasses more than $100 million a year in revenue, was founded by James Dobson, who believed secularism was the cause of the rapid decay of American society. Here is the organization’s complete track record on LGBTQ issues.1970James Dobson publishes Dare to Discipline, a book that recommends corporal punishment as a way to discipline poorly behaved children, writing:“Pain is a marvelous purifier. … 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.”Dobson believes children are inherently sinful and that they must embrace authority in order to fix America’s societal problems.1977Dobson launches FOTF in Arcadia, California. As the president and sole employee at the time, he hosts a weekly radio show on 34 stations where he mixes his background in psychology and in working with children with his evangelical principles. On the show, Dobson says secularism has led to the “rapid decay” of American society and that biblical principles are the cure.1980FOTF’s radio show grows to broadcast every day on more than 200 outlets. Around this time, Dobson joins fellow evangelical Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. in opposing IRS regulations that bar private religious schools from refusing to enroll Black students. Falwell is founder of the Moral Majority, a national effort to elect Christian Right politicians and whose early fundraising appeals used a “Declaration of War” on homosexuality.FOTF now has about three dozen employees. Its rad