500 protest anti-gay broadcaster, Prop. 8 patron James Dobson in Chicago

Days after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which eliminates equal marriage rights for lesbians and gays in that state, one of its chief backers was hit by a large and energetic protest when he came to Chicago for an award dinner.

Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network addresses the protest. WW photo: Lou Paulsen

The protest has been building since July, when it was announced that right-wing Christian broadcaster James Dobson had won an online vote to be inducted into the “Radio Hall of Fame” of Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications. Having already won wide local and national support, the protest picked up steam after the passage of Prop. 8 touched off a wave of mass activism for LGBT rights.

Over 500 people came out on the evening of Nov. 8, bringing signs, banners and rainbow flags, and establishing a loud and vigorous picket line which covered two sides of the Renaissance Hotel in the heart of downtown Chicago.

James Dobson, whose “Focus on the Family” broadcast is carried by 1,000 radio stations in the U.S., gave $800,000 to finance propaganda supporting Prop. 8. Dobson has said that equal marriage for lesbians and gays will “destroy the earth.” His “Love Won Out” subsidiary attempts to get lesbians and gays to “repent” of their sexual identity. Genuine therapists condemn Dobson’s “conversion” attempts as unscientific and dangerous.

A fierce opponent of reproductive choice, Dobson also distributed a pre-election “Letter from the year 2012 in Obama’s America,” warning that if Barack Obama were elected president, tyranny, ruin and nuclear destruction of U.S. cities would follow.

The leading sponsors of the protest were Truth Wins Out, a New York-based organization that has exposed Dobson’s “conversion” quackery; Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network; and Equality Illinois. Dozens of other LGBT and progressive groups built for the action and signed full-page newspaper ads to publicize it. (See dumpdobson.com, truthwinsout.org, and gayliberation.net)