James Dobson, influential founder of conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, dies age 89

James Dobson, a child psychologist who founded the conservative ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.

Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson started a radio show counseling Christians on how to be good parents and in 1977 founded Focus on the Family. At its peak, the organization had more than 1,000 employees and gave Dobson a platform to weigh in on legislation and serve as an adviser to five presidents.

He became a force in the 1980s for pushing conservative Christian ideals in American politics alongside fundamentalist giants like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. He campaigned for bringing religious conservatives into the political mainstream, and in 1989, Falwell called Dobson a rising star. Decades later, he served on a board of evangelical leaders that advised President Donald Trump in 2016. He supported Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns.

He celebrated the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade – including Trump’s conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court credited with the landmark decision that allowed states to ban abortion.

“Whether you like Donald Trump or not, whether you supported or voted for him or not, if you are supportive of this Dobbs decision that struck down Roe v. Wade, you have to mention in the same breath the man who made it possible,” he said in a ministry broadcast.

Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the institute that bears his name. He continued with the Family Talk radio show, which is nationally syndicated and is carried by 1,500 radio outlets with more than half a million listeners weekly, according to the institute.

An anti-pornography crusader, Dobson recorded a video interview with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before his January 24, 1989, execution in Florida. Bundy told Dobson that exposure to pornography helped fuel his sexual urges to a point that he looked for satisfaction by mutilating, killing and raping women.

At the time, Dobson’s Focus on the Family program was broadcast daily on 1,200 radio stations.

Months after the execution, Bundy’s attorney James Coleman downplayed the Dobson exchange in an interview with The Associated Press.

“I think that was a little bit of Ted telling the minister what he wanted to hear and Ted offering an explanation that would exonerate him personally,” Coleman told The Associated Press in 1989. “I had heard that before and I told Ted I never accepted it.”

Dobson is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, as well as their children, Danae and Ryan, daughter-in-law Laura, and two grandchildren, his family’s statement said.