HOME > VIEWPOINT > ACTION! ALERT
By: ERIC ERVIN
COMMENTS |
| 
GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS are outraged at Time magazine for publishing a column by James Dobson that suggested lesbian Mary Cheney and her partner cannot provide a child-rearing environment comparable to a married heterosexual couple.
The critics charge that the news magazine’s editors didn’t do their homework, and the researchers cited by Dobson to support his anti-gay claims say the president of Focus on the Family “distorted,” “twisted” and “cherry picked” their data.
Cheney, 37, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, announced she was pregnant Dec. 6. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting the baby in late spring.
Dobson’s column, “Two Mommies Is One Too Many,” was posted on Time’s website Dec. 12. It appears in this week’s print edition.
“With all due respect to Cheney and her partner Heather Poe, the majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father,” Dobson wrote.
TIME SPOKESPERSON ALI ZELENKO said Dobson’s column does not represent the opinions of the magazine’s staff.
“It’s clearly labeled as a viewpoint and he’s clearly labeled as president of Focus on the Family,” Zelenko said.
Asked specifically how something that researchers said distorted their facts could be published, Zelenko said it’s a matter of debate.
“Occasionally Time invites someone with a very strong opinion to make a statement that reflects their reading of the data,” Zelenko said in an e-mail. “In this instance … Time very quickly posted on Time.com someone whose reading of the data differs from Mr. Dobson’s. Time has a strong tradition of hosting debates of this kind, not just about ideas but about evidence.”
“Two Mommies or Two Daddies Will Do Fine, Thanks,” written by Family Pride Executive Director Jennifer Chrisler, was posted on Time’s website Dec. 14 as a rebuttal to Dobson.
Dobson “put to work the time-worn tools of lies and distortion to make his argument that lesbian and gay parents are not able to provide environments for their children comparable in quality to those created by heterosexual parents,” wrote Chrisler, whose group advocates for gay families.
CHRISLER ACCUSED TIME of being irresponsible by publishing Dobson’s column.
“It’s outrageous that he could get away with printing that kind of misinformation,” she said. “I am continually amazed at how often these lies show up in mainstream media.”
Dobson cited the works of Yale professor Dr. Kyle Pruett and New York University professor Dr. Carol Gilligan. In letters to Dobson obtained by Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group, Pruett and Gilligan demand that he stop using their research.
Gilligan said in the letter she was “mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time magazine.”
Pruett said he was also disgusted by Dobson’s column. “You cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes,” he said.
In response to the allegations, Focus on the Family released a statement through spokesperson Nima Reza.
“In the cases of both Drs. Gilligan and Pruett, the question is not, ‘Did Dr. Dobson apply their research only to political stands they agree with?’ but rather, ‘Is the essay true to what these individuals have written?’” Reza stated. “We believe that it is.”
|
