Surviving James Dobson’s Legacy of Lies

by Anthony Venn-Brown in Society

James Dobson, the late founder of Focus on the Family and an adviser to five U.S. presidents, became one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States from the late 20th century onward. Through his 70-plus books, radio broadcasts and political lobbying, he shaped conservative Christian views on family, sexuality, and public policy.

It was his book Dare to Discipline that launched him into Christian prominence as the “expert” in raising children, family life, and relationships. Just that book alone sold an estimated 3.5 million copies. It was a cultural counterpunch to the popular Dr. Benjamin Spock philosophy of child-rearing, which emphasized nurturing, affection and trust in parental instincts.

Spock’s “permissive” approach led to “a generation of rebellious and disrespectful young people,” according to Dobson. Where Spock was against corporal punishment, Dobson used the Bible to back his interpretation of a “spare the rod, spoil the child” approach.

“Pain is a marvelous purifier… that causes the child to cry genuinely,” Dobson wrote.

Central to his influence was his vehement opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, promoting the idea that homosexuality was sinful, destructive, and something that could — and should — be changed. Dobson’s rhetoric and advocacy fueled the religious right’s campaigns against same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination protections, and broader LGBTQ+ acceptance, leaving a lasting impact on U.S. politics and evangelical culture.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll see Dobson’s devastating influence still echoing today — in the unwavering loyalty of many Trump-era evangelicals who were raised on a steady diet of Dobson’s distortions, fear-mongering and anti-gay rhetoric.

Exhibit A: John Paulk

In his 2002 newsletter, “Can Homosexuality Be Treated and Prevented?” he printed a letter from a 13-year-old boy who’d reached out for help. The following extracts also appeared in Dobson’s 2011 best-selling book, Bringing Up Boys, in the chapter titled “The Origins of Homosexuality.”

“I’m afraid I have a little sodomy in me…. I don’t want to be homosexual but I’m afraid, very afraid,” the boy wrote, detailing experiences that many young men have.

He concluded the letter to Dobson with, “I came to Christ only about a year ago but have grown very much. I have also done lots wrong. I am a Mennonite. What denomination are you? I have been baptized and am well liked in the church (I think). I’m afraid if I am not straight… I will go to hell. I don’t want to be not straight. I don’t try to be not straight. I love God and want to go to heaven. If something is wrong with me, I want to get rid of it. Please help me.”

Doesn’t your heart ache for this troubled young gay boy?

In the newsletter, Dobson trotted out so-called ‘evidence’ that homosexuality can be changed, citing hand-picked individuals and dubious ‘experts’ to prop up his claims, including John Paulk, of whom he wrote:

One such individual is my co-worker at Focus on the Family, John Paulk, who has devoted his life to caring for and assisting those who want to change. At one time, he was heavily involved in the gay community, marched in “gay-pride” parades and was a cross-dresser. Ultimately, John found forgiveness and healing in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and he has walked the straight life now since 1987. He is happily married to Anne, a former lesbian, and they have two beautiful children.

At the height of the ex-gay/reparative/conversion “therapy” movement, Paulk was its poster boy, and he and his wife Anne appeared on the cover of Newsweek in 1998 with the heading “Gay for Life?”

Paulk eventually came out and apologized for the harm he had done.

Exhibit B: George Rekers

Of George Rekers, Dobson wrote:

Psychologist George Rekers says there is considerable evidence that change of sexual orientation is possible — with or without psychiatric intervention. He wrote, “In a sizable number of cases… the gender-identity disorder resolves fully.”

But in May 2010, Rekers — an ordained Southern Baptist minister and self-proclaimed “ex-gay” — was photographed at Miami International Airport emerging from a long European trip alongside a young male twentysomething companion whom he claimed was hired merely to carry his luggage. The young man, initially identified pseudonymously as “Lucien” (real name Jo‑vanni Roman), admitted he met Rekers through the escort service Rentboy.com and later revealed that he provided Rekers with daily nude “sexual” massages during the trip . Following the fallout, Rekers resigned from the board of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

It gets worse.

In Rekers’ 1982 book Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality, he advised how fathers should “affirm” their sons’ masculinity.

Meanwhile, the boy’s father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son’s maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard.

He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

This piece of advice from a tormented, closeted “Christian” psychologist is initially laughable, then gets creepy.

Exhibit C: Dr. Robert L. Spitzer

Of Dr Spitzer, Dobson wrote:

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, a psychiatric professor at Columbia University, created a firestorm in May 2001, when he released the results of his research that says his findings “show some people can change from gay to straight, and we ought to acknowledge that.” This was not what his critics wanted to hear. We applaud Dr. Spitzer for having the courage to examine and then expose the myth of inevitability.

However, in 2012, Spitzer publicly retracted and apologized for the study. He admitted that the research was fatally flawed: The methodology relied only on self-reports, with no way to verify claims of “change,” and his sample came primarily from participants recruited by ex-gay ministries.

Spitzer acknowledged that his work had been misused to justify harm against LGBTQ+ people and expressed deep regret, saying he owed the gay community an apology for publishing it in the first place.

Exhibit D: Love Won Out

In 1998, Focus on the Family launched the one-day Love Won Out conferences to “exhort and equip Christian churches to respond in a Christ‑like way to the issue of homosexuality.” The initiative was founded by John Paulk. By 2009 these pray-away-the-gay expos had been held approximately 55 times in major cities all over the U.S., reaching tens of thousands of participants.

Sometimes up to 5 were held in one year. The conferences were a platform for “ex-gays” to tell their “I was gay now I’m straight” stories and were attended by troubled queer Christians and their parents. The worst fear of evangelical parents being that their son or daughter ends up gay, lesbian or trans. According to Focus on the Family propaganda, if your child “chose” the “gay lifestyle,” they would have a sad, lonely, drug-fueled, disease-ridden and short lifespan — and of course, go to hell. Love Won Out conferences played on and reinforced their fears — often with devastating results.

The Love Won Out Defectors

Several regular speakers at the conferences have since come out publicly.

John Smid, who was also the director of the Love in Action ministry, was featured in the highly acclaimed Boy Erased movie. In 2010, John offered an apology and came out. In 2011 he answered many questions on his blog, saying, “I have never met anyone who has changed from gay to straight” — so different from the messages preached regularly from Love Won Out conference platforms. He now lives in Arkansas with his husband, Larry, and told the full story in his memoir Ex’d Out: How I Fired the Shame Committee.

Randy Scobey, known previously as Randy Thomas, was the vice president of Exodus International, the umbrella organization for hundreds of conversion “therapy” organizations. Randy spoke often at the conferences where Exodus was promoted.

Recognizing that no one had actually changed their orientation and the devastation that the organization’s “change is possible” mantra had caused to countless thousands, Exodus closed its doors in 2013, and Randy wrote an apology. He has also written a memoir titled “Why.”.  He now lives in Orlando with his husband, Dan.

Alan Chambers was the president of Exodus International. Like Randy and John, he was a regular speaker. Alan caused a seismic shift in the evangelical world in 2012 when he said:

The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9 percent of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction.

The following year, he issued an apology to the LGBTQ+ community and closed Exodus down after nearly four decades of existence.

John Paulk had already been immersed in the ex-gay world, first “converting” in the late 1980s and becoming involved with the Love in Action ministry, then headquartered in San Rafael, Calif. He was involved in Exodus and published Not Afraid to Change: The Remarkable Story of How One Man Overcame Homosexuality in 1988.

He met his wife Anne through their involvement in Exodus. They were married in 1992. From 1998 to 2003 he was chairman of Exodus International North America.

He also commenced working with Focus on the Family in the late ’90s. 1998 was a big year. He founded the Love Won Out conferences and appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine with his wife Anne. In 1999, he and Anne co-authored Love Won Out: How God’s Love Helped 2 People Leave Homosexuality and Find Each Other, published by Focus on the Family.

Then the big scandal hit.

Whilst in Washington, John was caught cruising in a gay bar. When the story came out in the media, he denied he’d gone into Mr. P’s in Washington, D.C., to cruise but only to use the bathroom. Patrons he’d been speaking to said otherwise. Disciplinary action meant he had to stand down from his position on the Exodus board and was on six months’ probation at Focus on the Family. After several years, John and Anne moved to Oregon, where John began a catering business.

It would be good to mention here a phenomenon I’ve observed. I call it the “ex-ex-gay closet.” After coming out or accepting their sexual orientation, they are rarely ready to speak about it — too much trauma and pain is attached to the memories and experiences.

Mostly, I have observed that it can take anywhere between six and 10 years before we are ready to speak up or share our experiences. I had about eight years hiding in the ex-ex-gay closet.

For John, it was around 10 years since he’d left Focus on the Family, Exodus and the “ex-gay” limelight. In 2013, when it was known that John and Anne were separating, John made a public apology (full text here), saying:

Today, I do not consider myself “ex-gay” and I no longer support or promote the movement. I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people.

Here we are now in 2025. Focus on the Family still operates and has not changed its message. Christian parents still fear that their “different” children might be gay or trans. And still, so few churches are affirming.

Epilogue: John Paulk on James Dobson

I like what my friend John Paulk posted on his Facebook wall soon after it was announced that James Dobson had passed:

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, died today at 89. Obituaries call him a giant of evangelical Christianity and a defender of families. That isn’t what I remember. I remember the damage.

Believing the Lie

For five years, I worked inside Focus on the Family. I was hired to direct the Homosexuality and Gender Division and created the Love Won Out Conference, which toured the country and sometimes drew more than a thousand people. From those stages, I introduced “ex-gays” who told audiences that homosexuality was a condition that could be changed if someone was motivated enough.

And I wasn’t just organizing the conferences — I was the poster boy. My story was held up as proof that “change” was real. I was placed on magazine covers, invited onto national television, and interviewed by countless major newspapers and radio programs. I wrote two books and spoke to audiences across the United States and Europe. My marriage, my children, and my faith were showcased as evidence that the movement worked.

But the truth was very different. I lied to the people I preached to, but I was lying to myself the most. I had become brainwashed by the false narrative that sexual orientation was changeable when it was not. Every headline that proclaimed me “cured” drove me deeper into despair, because I knew the truth hadn’t budged.

Behind the scenes, the torment was unbearable. I remember nights alone in hotel rooms before a conference, waiting to go onstage to tell my story of “freedom.” Instead of resting or preparing my notes, I would end up on the carpeted floor, curled in on myself, sobbing until my body heaved and I vomited. The weight of the lie crushed me: the truth I could not change, and the performance I was expected to deliver.

I remember one night in particular. The crowd was already gathering in the ballroom below, the sound of muffled voices rising through the vents like a distant hum. A knock at the door jolted me upright — an assistant checking to see if I was ready. I splashed water on my face, straightened my tie, and forced a smile into the mirror. But just minutes before, I had been begging God through tears: “Please lift this responsibility from me. I cannot do this to myself or others any longer.”

Then I walked out, took the stage, and told the crowd exactly what they came to hear.

That split — between the man on the stage and the man on the hotel room floor — nearly destroyed me.

Breaking Point

Faith had become a weapon aimed at people like me. We were told that “real Christians” must seek to be changed, that obedience meant erasing who we were. And when change never came, the conclusion was devastating maybe we weren’t “real Christians” at all.

But the deepest harm wasn’t just mine. It was inflicted on young people who sat in those audiences and watched me on those stages and TV programs. Teenagers saw the posters, read the interviews, and thought: If he can do it, why can’t I? Parents brought their kids to us, hoping to “fix” them, only to leave with more shame and less love.

Science has confirmed what our lives were already shouting. The American Medical Association warns that conversion therapy doesn’t work and causes lasting harm. A 2022 meta-analysis in JAMA Pediatrics, covering nearly 200,000 LGBTQ people, found that 12 percent had been subjected to conversion efforts. Those young people reported double the rates of severe psychological distress and suicide attempts compared with their peers. The American Psychological Association likewise concluded in 2009: no evidence of change, overwhelming evidence of damage.

I didn’t need journals. My life was proof. Conversion therapy didn’t make me straight. It made me ashamed, hollow, hopeless and suicidal.

Living Out Loud

I left the movement in 2003 and became a chef in Portland, Oregon. I never again spoke about my past or its aftermath. But in 2013 — ten years later my struggle was to the point that if i didn’t do something to change all of this I was going to take my life. I couldn’t live with myself any longer. When I came out (again) it caused a national stir. After years of intense therapy and numerous national apologies to those for whom my message hurt, things began to mend.

Today, my life could not be more different. I live out loud. I walk in truth and authenticity. I no longer split myself between the man in public and the man in private — I am simply myself. I am a gay man — whole, safe, secure, and loved.

I spend my days being a voice for the disenfranchised and for those who feel lost without hope. I’ve dedicated myself to speaking truth, not lies, and to helping others untangle the shame I once carried.

And I am a joy-filled, loving father and grandfather. My children know me as I truly am — not a façade, not a “poster boy,” but a man who loves them without condition and who is loved in return.

I believe now what I wish I had known all along: that God loves us as we are and walks with us through the difficulties of life. Not as a punisher demanding change, but as a companion offering strength, grace, and love.

Reclaiming Life

When I read that James Dobson is being remembered as a man who cared about families, I think instead about the families torn apart by his message. Parents taught to fear their own children. Spouses trapped in marriages built on self-denial. Young people who looked at me — the smiling “success story” on the magazine cover — and walked away believing they were broken beyond repair because they couldn’t replicate my lie.

Dobson’s empire baptized cruelty and called it love. That is his true legacy.

But those of us who lived through it are writing a different ending. Our story is one of survival. It looks like telling the truth, even when it costs. It looks like acknowledging our complicity while naming the coercion. It looks like building lives where we no longer need to prove our worth.

For years, I parroted a message that broke me as much as anyone else. Today, I live in truth. James Dobson has died. But we survived.

Yes John, James Dobson may be gone, but the damage he inflicted reverberates in broken families, wounded lives, and a church culture still struggling to unlearn his toxic teachings. His empire preached fear while branding it as love, and countless LGBTQ+ people paid the price in shame, silence, and suffering. Yet the final word is not his. Survivors have spoken, the truth has been told, and a new story is being written — one of healing, authenticity, and hope. Dobson’s legacy is a warning; Our lives are testimony. We endured, we rose, and we are still here.

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