Sunday, May 11, 2008
A gay activist boycott of the conservative radio host backfires when the religious right jumps in.
Jun 20, 2000 | On Tuesday, the titans of the religious right will meet in Washington for an annual summit of sorts to discuss how entertainment programming is harming American families. But this time, topping the agenda of the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council and the American Family Association will be the free speech rights of an orthodox Jew: Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Conservative Christians are lining up behind the controversial talk-show host, calling her the latest victim of an "anti-family" crusade. Gay activists targeted Schlessinger for what they called anti-gay rhetoric -- calling homosexuality a "biological error," touting "reparative therapy" to make gays heterosexual and claiming gays are more likely than straights to be pedophiles -- and in May they got Procter & Gamble to pull its pledge of advertising from her planned TV show.
Defending the wildly popular radio conservative who has more than 14 million listeners immediately became a cause for the religious right. "The television airwaves are rapidly embracing indoctrination, as honest debate is apparently no longer important," the Rev. Jerry Falwell said as he jumped to Dr. Laura's defense.
Of course there's irony in members of the Christian right defending someone they think is going to hell. ("Yes, anyone needs to accept Jesus Christ to be saved," says Focus on the Family spokesman Tom Minnery. "Even Dr. Laura.") But that hasn't stopped them from taking up her cause, and doing it mighty effectively. On May 22, Focus on the Family's leader James Dobson jumped to her defense, telling his radio-show listeners (which Focus estimates at 3 million a week), "There must be pluralism in this country." He admitted that Dr. Laura "does not claim to be a Christian -- she's Jewish -- but she's taken a strong stand for moral principles: the 10 Commandments and traditional parenthood and so on."
Dobson then launched a broadside attack against Procter & Gamble for pulling its support from Dr. Laura's shows, and urged listeners to call P&G to vent their outrage. "I wish they'd tell the soap maker they're not going to buy their products."
With that, the backlash officially began. Suddenly, what might have seemed like a savvy online protest of a planned TV show by gay activists had spawned much more powerful imitators -- on the other side. And now P&G, which earned kudos from some liberals for distancing itself from Dr. Laura and her so-called gay-bashing, is promising Dobson and others it will keep ads for its products -- from Pampers to Cover Girl to Clearasil -- off not just Schlessinger's show, but others that seem "inappropriate." NBC's "Law and Order" and MTV's "Undressed" and "Tom Green Show" have come under attack, and others are sure to follow.
That's probably not what Dr. Laura's critics envisioned when they started their campaign against her. But free-speech absolutists will find the story a textbook case of what happens when "good" people try to crack down on "bad" ideas: Sooner or later, inevitably, their enemies use the same cudgel against them, and, perhaps, much more effectively.
Get Salon in your mailbox!