By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Gay activists are pledging to protest the induction ceremony for the National Radio Hall of Fame this November in Chicago if it goes ahead with plans to put one of the country’s leading anti-gay fundamentalists in the hall.

“It is an affront for the Radio Hall of Fame to honor James Dobson, a right-wing demagogue who built his radio empire on the backs of gay and lesbian people,” said Wayne Besen, a longtime Human Rights Campaign official who left HRC in 2006 and launched Truth Wins Out to counter misinformation efforts by anti-gay groups.

Dobson is founder and head of Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based religious organization that’s grown into one of the country’s largest and most profitable broadcasting and publishing empires. Much of that growth has been fueled by Dobson’s strident anti-gay messages, delivered throughout the country on a daily radio broadcast and often accompanied by fundraising appeals.

Characteristic of Dobson’s attacks on gay people is this quote, taken from an essay by Dobson on his website in 2004, in which he called the gay movement “the greatest threat to your children.”

“It is of particular danger to your wide-eyed boys, who have no idea what demoralization is planned for them,” Dobson said.

Dobson also has been the principal backer of Exodus International and Love Won Out, so-called “ex-gay” groups that claim to make gays straight. The groups have never documented those claims and have been embarrassed by disclosures of gay-related affairs and incidents on the part of top officials.

Besen said Dobson has also been criticized by at least seven researchers who’ve accused him of distorting their works to make questionable anti-gay allegations.

“This is somebody who’s incredibly truth-challenged,” Besen said. “This is an extraordinarily dishonest person.”

The Hall of Fame is affiliated with the Chicago-based Museum of Broadcast Communications, which was housed in the Chicago Cultural Center until 2003. The MBC was slated to move into a new facility at State and Kinzie in spring 2005 but has had to delay those plans because of fiscal issues.

MBC founder Bruce DuMont stressed that the Hall of Fame is governed by its own steering committee, separately from the MBC. It was that steering committee, DuMont explained, that placed Dobson on the list of nominees this year after reviewing recommendations on nominees from the public.

“We do not take into consideration one’s politics or the content of one’s message,” DuMont said, commenting on the process that led to Dobson’s nomination.

Longevity is the key consideration, DuMont said, noting nomination criteria that requires nominees to have successful careers for 20 years in local radio broadcasting or 10 years in national broadcasting.

There are about 25 people from diverse backgrounds in the radio industry on the steering committee, which is selected by DuMont.

This year the Hall of Fame decided to allow the public to vote on the nominees selected by the steering committee. Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” program beat out Laura Schlessinger, Bob Costas and Howard Stern in a vote that was likely influenced by Dobson’s active campaign to get his listeners to vote for him.

On July 11, just four days before voting ended, Dobson’s organization issued an action alert that linked people to the online voting site for the Hall of Fame, saying that Dobson “deserves a spot in the Radio Hall of Fame.”

DuMont wouldn’t comment on whether the steering committee discussed Dobson’s anti-gay record when it considered his nomination, saying members are sworn to secrecy about the committee’s deliberations. Assuming the Hall goes forward with Dobson’s induction this fall, he would easily become the most controversial person to receive that honor. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was inducted in 1993 but controversial figures similar to Dobson—mid-20th Century broadcaster and Catholic priest Charles Coughlin, for example—are not in the Hall.

“It’s unfortunate that there are those who feel offended and hurt,” DuMont said. “I understand the issue. I understand the passion. …For 20 years the Museum has been very fair in its treatment of gay and lesbian people and my expectation is that that will continue.”

Besen said he’s prepared to join with GLBTs in Chicago and elsewhere to stage protests at the Hall’s induction ceremony Nov. 8 at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel downtown.

“It’s a disgrace to honor somebody like this,” Besen said. “It’s of the utmost importance to join up with groups in Chicago and Illinois to protest this.”