James Dobson, the founder of the Christian anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups Focus on the Family (FOF) and the Family Research Council (FRC), has died at the age of 89. Hailed as one of the most influential evangelical leader[s] in America, he considered same-sex marriage worse than terrorism and encouraged men to murder trans women.Born in 1936 to a fundamentalist minister father in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson graduated with a doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Southern California in 1967, and gained notoriety in 1970 by writing Dare to Discipline, a book that urged parents to use corporeal punishment to break the will of their children; his book also encouraged parents to hit their kids more if they cried for longer than five minutes after their initial beating. Related I was once an architect of the Christian nationalist agenda. I regret it all. He founded FOF in 1977 and the FRC in 1981, two groups that specifically targeted feminists and gay people. FRC successfully championed the 1992 passage of Colorados Amendment 2, a ballot measure that forbade municipalities from passing anti-discrimination measures to protect gay and bi people.Dobson also co-founded the Christian Nationalist legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom in 1993 the group has successfully overturned the national right to an abortion and opposes any expansion of LGBTQ+ civil rights. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dobson and his network of evangelical conservative activists helped pass numerous state-level bans on same-sex marriage. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today By November 2004, Slate.com called Dobson Americas most influential evangelical leader, comparing him with the massively powerful anti-LGBTQ+ pastors Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. In 2010, Dobson launched Family Talk Radio, which aired on over 1,500 stations worldwide. Dobson also served as an adviser to five Republican presidents, includingDonald Trump.Dobson said women are hormonally predisposed to stay at home and raise children. He said women should use sex to gain the protection of men and use romance to civilize mens destructive and lustful impulses. He also said feminists threaten society because they question mens natural leadership. Dobson and his groups promoted conversion therapy, the widely debunked, pseudoscientific practice that purports to change peoples sexual orientation and gender identity.Dobson opposed pro-trans public accommodation laws because, he said, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser, or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence. He compared proponents of same-sex marriage to Nazis who want the utter destruction of the family. He also said same-sex marriage would destroy the Earth.In 2005, Dobson said that tolerance and diversity are buzzwords used in a hidden agenda to promote homosexual propaganda to children.In 2015, Dobson said that the B in LGBTQ+ stands for orgies because bisexual people want to have sex with everybody. Dobson warned that legalizing same-sex marriage would result in civil war, fathers marrying their daughters, and men marrying donkeys. In 2016, he said that men should murder trans women who use womens restrooms.In 2017, he signed the Nashville Statement, an evangelical statement on sexuality and gender that called it sinful and anti-Christian to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism.In 2019, Dobson incited fear around the Equality Act, a federal bill to prohibit anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. Dobson said the act represents one of the most egregious assaults on religious liberty ever foisted on the people of this great nation, and claimed that LGBTQ+ people and Democrats would enslave Christians if the act became law. That same year, he claimed that mass shootings at schools and businesses occur because the LGBTQ movement is closing in on the God-inspired and established institution of the family.In June 2020, Dobson declared the Supreme Court ruling that protected people from discrimination in employment due to gender and sexualityan affront against Godand a historical attack against the founding framework that governs our nation.Dobsons group, FOF, has called the LGBTQ+ rights movement a particularly evil lie of Satan. FOF said the homosexual movements goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, the discrediting of Scriptures that condemn homosexuality, muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrination of children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies.The FRC has gone on to say that same-sex sexuality should be legislated and declared illegal and that criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior should be enforced. The group has argued that repealing the militarys Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy encourages the molestation of heterosexual service members.The FRC has also dishonestly argued that homosexual men are more likely to abuse children than straight men, rhetoric that encourages violence against LGBTQ+ people and their allies. FRC leaders have said thatthe Bible commands Christians to kill gay peopleand that Christians shouldpray against any expansion of LGBTQ civil rights. Evangelical groups and leaders associated with Dobson, FRC, and FOF have gone on to advocate for anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Africa, Europe, and East Asia.In his 1997 book James Dobsons War on America, former FoF executive Gil Alexander-Moegerle wrote, James Dobson believes that he has been entirely sanctified, morally perfected, that he does not and cannot sin. Now you know why he and moralists like him make a life of condemning what he believes to be the sins of others. He is perfect.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.