Customer Reviews

Marriage Under Fire: Why We Must Win This Battle

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I am in full agreement with the thesis of this book. Dr. Dobson's arguments that there is a certain segment of the American population hostile to the values taught in the Bible are accurate. This is preaching to the choir type book. Only individuals who have distaste for today's American culture will find themselves in agreement with arguments in this book. This book is a presentation moral attitudes of the persons occupying the United States are heading for the toilet. More important it is an argument that certain political forces are contributing to this countries moral decade. Forces in this country are colluding together to force social standards antichristian in nature down people's throats. Those who dissent to the ideas and values of James Dobson argue it is the Evangelical Christians doing this. This book is a call for political involvement and to be expressive to what offends in the public schools and government institutions.


I find Erin V. Lutzer book titled The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage a more rounded presentation of Christian opposition to same -Sex marriage, the Christian social life and loving the sinner not the sin.

The recent California Supreme Court decision overturning a CA state law approved by 61% of CA voters (prop 22 - defined marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman) demonstrates the timeliness of Dr. Dobson's reitterations of basic moral principles and the need to defend them from people who want any and every behavior to be applauded by society.

Another review states that all this information can be found elsewhere on the Web. I doubt many people would bother to search it out on the web. Here's a book that puts it all in one place to be read and pondered; a book that I can give to relatives and friends to encourage critical thinking and discussion on this important issue.

It is a must read for everyone, to better understand what is at stake with Prop #8.We must protect Marriage or our country is doomed to sink lower and lower.

This book is not likely to change any minds. Those already opposed to same-sex marriage here will find only one-sided fuel for their opinions: those in favour (already not likely to read the book) will undoubtedly find the arguments frankly unconvincing. It's completely one-sided; some of his assertions are even patently untrue (that same-sex marriage leads "inexorably" to polygamy (p. 48) is only one example). Read Dobson's list of eleven concerns he has over same-sex marriage:

[If same-sex marriage is legalized]

1 - ...it will quickly destroy the traditional family
2 - children will suffer most
3 - public schools in every state will embrace homosexuality
4 - adoption laws will be instantly obsolete
5 - foster-care programs will be impacted dramatically
6 - the health-care system will stagger and perhaps collapse
7 - Social Security will be severely stressed
8 - Religious freedoms will almost certainly be jeopardized
9 - other nations... will follow our lead
10 - the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be severely curtailed, and
11 - the culture war will be over, and the world may soon become "as it was in the Days of Noah" (Matt 24:37) (pp. 47-64)

Dobson failed to convince me on every single one of these points. His assertions are alarmist and his book merely an attempt to fear-monger Christians into political action. It was obviously produced too quickly to be well-edited (for example, is the subtitle "Why We Must Win This Battle" as on the cover or "Why We Must Win This War" as on the title page?). It's also just a compilation of what Dobson has already said, in other publications and elsewhere. Frankly, I view this as a money-grab by Focus on the Family (an accusation such evangelical Christians should be familiar with). Why would you buy this book when you can surf the net and get all of this information for free?

In sum: Dobson panders to his Christian supporters by mass-producing an unconvincing book on short order talking about the perceived threat to marriage that contains no new information but represents merely a compilation of what Dobson is already on record as saying elsewhere. Don't buy it.

Mr. Dobson's hastily assembled "book" (a quick read at barely 128 pages) ignores statistical comparisons between heterosexual marriages and long-term homosexual relationships as well as studies of children raised in same-sex family environments vs. "traditional" families. If you're a fan of Mr. Dobson then you will be thrilled with this book. If you're looking for a reasoned analysis of the issues surrounding same-sex unions and American society then I'd recommend you look elsewhere.

This is a great, quick read to get caught up on the straight facts concerning the immoral homosexual activist movement to force homosexual marriage on the American People, AGAINST THEIR WILL AND VOTE!

On page 41 he points out, "Like Adolf Hitler, who overran his European neighbors, those who favor homosexual marriage are determined to make it legal, regardless of the democratic processes that stand in the way." That is where America stands today. Nearly 40 States have Defense of Marriage Laws to prevent and reject homosexual marriage, but the homosexual activists KNOW they can bypass the Will of the People by finding JUST ONE rogue judge in each State to declare the law "unconstitutional."

Dobson compares this marriage debate to a collision of matter (traditional marriage) against antimatter (same sex marriage), and he's right!

What's wrong with two homosexuals getting married? It won't end there. On page 50, Dr. Dobson writes, "The history of the gay and lesbian movement has been that its adherents quickly move the goal line as soon as the previous one has been breached, revealing even more shocking and outrageous objectives." Don't think that it won't hurt anybody else in America. Eventually all facets of American life will be sodomized BY LAW, but not through the Constitutional process, by rogue judges illegally writing laws, instead of obeying the laws that Congress and the President have been elected to make for us.

Page 56 says, "With the legalization of homosexual marriage, every public school in the nation will be required to teach this perversion as the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman... it is already happening in the state of California."

In an immoral America under sodomy, we could quickly end up like Canada. "Indeed, on April 28, 2004, the Parliament passed Bill C-250, which effectively criminalized speech or writings that criticize homosexuality. Anything deemed 'homophobic' is punishable by six months in prison or other severe penalties," writes Dobson on page 59.

It seems unbelievable, but it's true. The homosexual activists will stop at nothing to sodomize the morals and lives of a free nation WHO ALWAYS VOTE AGAINST HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE! Americans don't want Same Sex Marriage, but the courts are illegally forcing it on us! Pay attention to Dr. Dobson, he's a frontline fighter in this ugly battle of morality versus immorality. At least God and the Bible are on the side of morality. Are you?

Page 63 read, "Marriage is a sacrament designed by God that serves as a metaphor for the relationship between Christ and His church. Tampering with His plan for the family is immoral and wrong."

From a Christian perspective, Dobson explains that the immoral side likes to act like morality is negative and is hurting them. Immoral activists like to call moral activists names like "bigots" and "homophobics." Dobson reminds us that immoral people persecuted Jesus and called Him names, too, but He stood firm on morality, and so should we. "Do not get discouraged when it happens to you. Just hang in there and keep doing what is right. Remember, Jesus was unjustly accused, too... Jesus told us it would be that way."

Other good books on this topic are "The Homosexual Agenda" by Alan Sears, and "Same-Sex Marriage" by Mathew Staver; who are both attorneys and heads of law firms that have been fighting tooth and nail against immoral homosexual marriage troublemakers. These two books are thicker and more detailed than the Dobson book. Dr. Dobson's book is a fast afternoon read. If you want to know more in-depth coverage, see the Sears and/or Staver books.

The book is a call to arms for those sympathetic to Evangelical Christian types of heterosexism - the view that heterosexuality is superior to all other sexual orientations - to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which would define marriage, constitutionally speaking, as a union between one woman and one man.

The book succeeds in presenting a worldview that is very internally consistent. Traditional marriage, Dobson alleges, is good for couples, their children, and society. Those on the Left have tried to change the institution of marriage by various measures such as no-fault divorce, and deleterious effects - from a Christian point of view - have followed. Legalizing same-sex marriage, so the argument goes, is the next step in a logical progression to subvert traditional marriage and possibly even to destroy the entire institution. Despite the claims of those sympathetic to gay rights, gay marriage signals the end of society (as certain segments of the Evangelical Right would have it) and is not an equality or civil rights issue at all, according to Dobson.

The problem with the book is that some of it sounds unpalatably hateful. Dobson cites ridiculous studies suggesting that every gay person regularly has 1000+ sexual partners, and in citing this he hopes to show that gay parenting inherently entails an unstable situation for the child(ren). One of the reasons to oppose gay marriage is that the gays who pay into Social Security and other social programs could benefit from them through spousal benefits. Dobson thinks the source of gays' suffering is not that they're subject to hateful legislation and violence of the physical and psychological varieties but rather because they simply need to be changed into heterosexuals. An obvious parallel presents itself: Blacks living under Jim Crow weren't unhappy because they were being lynched and denied voting rights but because they weren't White. Dobson tries hard but unsuccessfully to avoid the obvious parallels between racism (and anti-miscegenation laws) on the one hand and his heterosexism on the other; as his evidence, he says that certain Black conservative leaders don't see the parallel and that anti-miscegenation laws were meant to keep the races separate which is a different goal from FMA. The obvious rejoinders are 1) Who cares that certain Black people don't see the parallels; why are they - or any Black people - the authorities to consult in the first place? 2) Anti-miscegenation laws were made because certain Whites saw themselves as superior to other races and sought to protect their racial superiority by keep their race 'pure,' and FMA is a similar expression of superiority.

Obviously, I'm not a supporter of Dobson's message, but for those who agree with or are interested by such things, it's a slightly outdated manifesto (FMA is no longer on the table) that can acquaint one with Dobson's and Focus on the Family's ideology.

As I read this book I felt it was deeply based on 'feelings' rather than straight facts. There is no evidence to back up most of his theories. If I were to guess, I don't think God was behind the making of this book at all. And as a Christian I would rather read a well written piece of literature from some one who had God backing him/her up all the way.

I have no patience for people who are trying to get their point across in a non-christian manner.

This book is outrageous! I would like to know where "Dr." Dobson received his PhD in psychology because they obviously don't have a strong program. Either they forgot to teach him fundamentals of statistics or the basics of APA's ethical standards.

Maybe Dobson doesn't know that a correlation study does not tell you the cause of a variable, no matter what. The only studies that offer evidence that variable A causes variable B are called experiments. This means that even if same-sex partner benefits were offered to gay couples in Scandinavia before traditional families started losing popularity, the fact that both are happening does not mean that one caused the other. My favorite example to demonstrate this point is that more churches in a city are associated with a higher rate of homicide. This does not mean that Christianity causes murder. Nor does it mean that murder causes Christianity. The cause for this relationship is population, which is associated with both higher homicide rates and number of churches. There are no experiments that I've heard of that deal with this topic, therefore it is impossible to say thatthere is evidence of same-sex marriage causing societal problems.

What is more frightening, and more probable, is that Dobson knows what he is doing. I'm not an expert, but I do to remember that lying about research for personal gains is unethical. What is the personal gain he seeks? It could be religious beliefs-which should never be the sole reason for law-or it could be membership in, and donations to, his organization Focus on the Family. If the second is the case, shame on him for fooling Christians into hating a minority group, something Christians were a victim of under Roman rule.

On a side note, it is unfair to call judges "activists" for not holding up your personal beliefs. It is really a benefit that judges are not elected because it removes them from the politics of re-election. They are able to stand up for what is right instead of standing up for what will get them votes.

Dr. Dobson does an excellent job of using statistics to show where our country is heading if same sex-marriage is legalized. He refers to other countries who have "been there, done that." A must read for anyone concerned about the future of our great nation.