James Dobson

===Focus on the Family===
In 1977, he founded [[Focus on the Family]].<ref>Randall Herbert Balmer, ''Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism: Revised and expanded edition'', Baylor University Press, USA, 2004, p. 222</ref> He grew the organization into a multimedia empire by the mid-1990s, including 10 radio programs, 11 magazines, numerous videos, and basketball camps, and program of [[fax]]ing suggested sermon topics and bulletin fillers to thousands of churches every week.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Roberts |first=Steven V. |title=The Heavy Hitter |journal=[[U.S. News & World Report]] |date=1995-04-25 |volume=118 |issue=16 |page=34}} "Like a religious version of Walt Disney, Dobson started with a small idea and built it into a multimedia empire: 10 radio shows, 11 magazines (including specialty publications for doctors, teachers and single parents), bestselling books, film strips and videos of all kinds. Then there are the basketball camps and the curriculum guides, the church bulletin fillers and suggested sermon topics, faxed weekly to thousands of pastors."</ref> In 1995, the organization's budget was more than $100 million annually.{{sfn|Du Mez|2020|p=85}}

[[Jimmy Carter]] organized a White House Conference on Families in 1979–1980 that explicitly included a "diversity of families" with various structures.<ref>{{cite report |title=White House Conference on Families; Listening to America's Families |publisher=White House Conference on Families, Washington, D.C. |location=Baltimore/Minneapolis/Los Angeles |date=June 1980 |url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED198914.pdf |quote=Diversity of Families: American families are pluralistic in nature. Our discussion of issues will reflect an understanding of and respect for cultural, ethnic and regional differences as well as differences in structure and lifestyle. }} Dobson is pictured in the Research Forum section.</ref> Dobson objected to this, believing that only his preferred notion of the traditional family {{mdash}} one headed by a male breadwinner married to a female caregiver {{mdash}} should be endorsed by the conference. He also objected to the fact that he was not invited to the planning for the event. At Dobson's urging, his listeners wrote 80,000 letters to the White House asking for Dobson to be invited, which he eventually was. This demonstrated to Dobson his power to rally his followers for political ends.{{sfn|Ridgely|2016|p=180}}

Beginning in 1980, Dobson built networks of political activists and founded lobbying organizations that advocated against LGBT rights and opposed legal abortion, among other socially conservative policy goals. He nurtured relationships with conservative politicians, such as [[Ronald Reagan]]. He was among the founders of [[Family Research Council]] in 1981, a federal lobbying organization classified as a hate group, and [[Family Policy Council]]s that lobby at the level of state government. When Focus on the Family moved to [[Colorado Springs]] in 1991, the city started to be called "the [[Vatican City|Vatican]] of the [[Christian right|Religious Right]]" with Dobson imagined as an evangelical pope.{{sfn|Stephens|2019|p=4–5}}