Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson Dead at 89

Influential Christian conservative activist James Dobson, once described as "the most powerful religious broadcaster on the planet," died today, August 21, according to an announcement from the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.

Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977 in California, but moved the religious right organization to Colorado Springs in 1991, and almost immediately began supporting the anti-gay Amendment Two campaign, which barred state or local governments from passing anti-discrimination laws for gay and lesbian people (the effort passed, but was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1996).

Homosexuality was an obsession for Dobson, who endorsed so-called "conversion therapy" for gay people and advocated against laws banning the practice. He co-founded the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBT legal group, in 1994. Right now, the Alliance Defending Freedom has challenged Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for minors, and the Supreme Court will hear the case when its next term begins in October.

In 1998, Focus on the Family launched Love Won Out, an "ex-gay" ministry that held conferences aiming for homosexual attendees to pray the gay away, and advocated for "reparative therapy."

In 2004, Dobson arranged "Mayday for Marriage" events in six cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C., pushing for constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage. Voters in eleven states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah — heeded his call and approved those amendments in their state constitutions.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court codified same-sex marriage as the law of the land in the United States. However, a suit was filed earlier this month in Kentucky by former county clerk Kim Davis, who was famously jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples, seeking to overturn the ruling allowing gay marriages.

Dobson also campaigned against pornography. In 1989, he interviewed serial killer Ted Bundy the day before his execution, with Bundy attributing his crimes of sexual violence to exposure to pornography. Bundy's lawyer later said his client was telling Dobson what he wanted to hear.

Dobson, along with disgraced pastor Ted Haggard and Family Research Council co-founder (with Dobson) Tony Perkins, were responsible for Colorado Springs' reputation as "the Vatican of the Religious Right," a characterization that still lingers in the conservative enclave 69 miles south of Denver.

Dobson retired from Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute; he also continued his radio show Family Talk, which the institute says was carried by 1,500 radio outlets. Dobson is survived by his wife, Shirley, as well as two children and two grandchildren, according to the family institute.