April 09, 2015 01:46 PM UTC

James "SpongeDob" Dobson: Gay Marriage Could Start Civil War

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

We haven’t heard much in the last few years from the founder of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson, since his retirement from that leading evangelical Christian group in 2009. Since then, Dobson has continued on with a new “ministry” with a similar focus, Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, which if you didn’t know is headquartered just across I-25 from Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

Formerly an icon on the “culture wars,” famous for his tirade against the children’s television program SpongeBob Squarepants, Dobson has a somewhat lower profile in American politics today–reportedly by design–but when he does speak, he can still make controversial headlines without breaking a sweat. As Right Wing Watch reports:

James Dobson, the founder of the Religious Right behemoth Focus on the Family, warned in a recent conference call with fellow anti-gay activists that a Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality could lead to a full-blown civil war.

After Janet Porter, the creator of a new “documentary” about how the gay rights movement will outlaw Christianity, discussed her “restraining order” campaign to convince Congress to strip the Supreme Court of its authority to rule on marriage cases, Dobson said that his fellow activists “need to be realistic about what we’re up against here.”

He said that the gay rights issue has reached an unprecedented “level of intensity” and put the country on the brink of conflict: “Talk about a Civil War, we could have another one over this.” [Pols emphasis]

Dobson also claimed that marriage equality will lead to the collapse of the nation: “The country can be no stronger than its families. I really believe if what the Supreme Court is about to do is carried through with, and it looks like it will be, then we’re going to see a general collapse in the next decade or two. I just am convinced of that. So we need to do everything we can to try to hold it back and to preserve the institution of marriage.”

Here’s the audio, with the Bob Beauprez-style civil war forecast starting at about 1:35:

And here’s where Dobson asserts that if the Supreme Court upholds marriage equality, the United States will “collapse in the next decade or two.”

Shocking stuff to hear in 2015, but keep it in perspective: a decade ago, this kind of far-out rhetoric was actually pretty common on the religious right. The last few years have witnessed a rapid shift in public opinion across America toward overwhelming public support for marriage equality, and the once-powerful religious right, led by men like Dobson, has been basically powerless to stop the falling dominoes.

But today, in what may be the last few months before the Supreme Court settles this question forever, it makes sense that the rhetoric from the far right–and naturally, we hope that it remains just rhetoric–is going bury the proverbial needle. Given his long history, it’s embarrassing but not a surprise that Colorado’s own James Dobson is staking out the fringe of this discussion.