A letter to radio personality Dr. Laura highlights fallacies in Biblical anti-homosexual arguments.
We first ran into this letter in the online world in May 2000, just after the state of Vermont permitted homosexual couples to contract 'civil unions,' an official recognition that imparted to same-sex partners the legal benefits of marriage, such as the right to be regarded by hospitals as their partners' next of kin, to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners, and to file joint tax returns. This 'everything that is marriage but the name' decision pleased some and angered others, resulting in many heated opinions about same-sex unions in specific, and homosexuality in general, to be bruited in countless public forums.Thanks to her oft-aired opinion that homosexuals were a 'mistake of nature,' radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger became one of the targets of those of pro-gay sympathies looking for someone to shake a finger at.Dr. Schlessinger has attracted both adherents and detractors during her years of public life. Through her radio show, she dispenses advice to callers, usually from a conservative point of view. She was an Orthodox Jew at the time the letter quoted above was written (but she announced her renunciation of that faith on her show in July 2003) and often draws upon the Bible or religious teachings for guidance. She is blunt and forthright in her replies, viewing most situations as inherently black or white, right or wrong.Laura Schlessinger is neither a medical doctor nor accredited in a discipline one would traditionally look to for the generation of expertise in moral, societal, or spiritual matters (such as divinity, psychology, or sociology). She earned her doctorate in physiology from Columbia University and practiced as a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor for more than a decade (although her California Marriage Family and Child Counseling license has been inactive for many years now).In 1998 nude photos of Laura Schlessinger were displayed on the Internet. During the commotion over those pictures, their source was revealed to be veteran Los Angeles radio broadcaster Bill Ballance, a man who was pivotal in getting Schlessinger her start in radio. Ballance claimed he photographed her in 1978, while the pair of them were having an affair during Schlessinger's first marriage.Some see Schlessinger's use of 'Doctor' as misleading and view her current stance on the sanctity of marriage and the wrongness of adultery as hypocrisy in light of her decades-earlier affair. Others believe the title of 'Doctor' should not be restricted only to those in the medical field and hold that people can change over time, even to the point of full repudiation of previous behaviors and beliefs.Dr. Laura is as controversial as she is popular, so she attracts both bouquets and brickbats whenever topics she is known to harbor strong opinions about become part of the day's news. Thus, those looking for someone to crow at over Vermont's recognition of same-sex unions would have quickly thought of Dr. Laura.The counter to the 'homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so' argument that is the Dr. Laura letter was penned by Kent Ashcraft and was indeed mailed to her. It only became an Internet-circulated piece after its author e-mailed a copy to one friend whom he thought would find it amusing. She in turn forwarded the item to several of her friends, and the letter went viral within a couple of weeks.While some versions in circulation identify James M. Kauffman as the author of the piece, that gentleman denies authorship of it.In August 2003 a journalist for the Halifax Daily News presented the 'Dr. Laura letter' as her own writing. For presenting the piece in her column as her own by signing it 'Yours truly, Jane,' reporter Jane Kansas was fired from that publication. (Her version also changed 'Dear Dr. Laura' to 'Dear Holy Father' and added some local references.)This May 2000 piece struck a note with many people, and by June and July of that year it had made its way into a number of newspapers, including the Knoxville News-Sentinel (7 June), Seattle Weekly (8 June), OC Weekly (9 June), The [Syracuse] Post-Standard (11 June), [Madison] Capital Times (13 July), and the Modesto Bee (22 July). Most often the letter was acknowledged as an interesting item gleaned from the Internet, but in a few cases the readers who sent it to newspapers presented it as their own words.The key to this essay is its premise, not the pedantic details of it of how it is defended. Simply put, the letter points out a logical flaw in the 'homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so' argument: if homosexuality is wrong because it goes against God's law as outlined in the Bible, why aren't any number of activities now viewed as innocuous but proscribed as unacceptable in the Bible also offenses against God's law? How can one part of Leviticus be deemed as etched in stone when other parts have been discarded as archaic?The essay completes with the sarcastic rejoinder 'Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.' While this is presented as a rebuke meant for just one, it is a general reminder that many belief systems pick and choose their way through Biblical teachings in determining what is right and what is wrong, with those assessments changing over time even within sects that pride themselves on strict adherence to the Good Book.In early October 2000, Dr. Schlessinger ran a full-page ad in Variety offering an apology for what she called 'poorly chosen' words about homosexuality. She had previously referred to gays as 'biological errors' and 'deviants,' as exemplified by her remarks of 8 December 1998:I'm sorry - hear it one more time, perfectly clearly: If you're gay or a lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative and valuable is all true. The error is in your inability to relate sexually intimately, in a loving way to a member of the opposite sex - it is a biological error.October 2000 was not Dr. Laura's month. A few weeks after she issued her apology, a version of the 'Letter to Dr. Laura' was incorporated into the 18 October episode of the political television drama The West Wing. In 'The Midterms,' President Bartlet uses his own detailed knowledge of the Bible to make a Schlessinger-esque character named Jenna Jacobs look ridiculous. Kent Ashcraft, the author of the Dr. Laura letter, received a modest sum from Lorimar Productions in payment for their use of parts of his letter in that episode):Just as the Internet piece gave the West Wing writers fodder for a memorable scene, so did the exposure on a popular television show boost the online circulation of the 'Letter to Dr. Laura.' Similarly, the 2004 brouhaha over gay marriage sparked a renewal of this e-missive, causing it to once again be flung from inbox to inbox.In the wake of President George W. Bush's election to a second term, in the Fall of 2004 the piece was circulated yet again, this time addressed 'Dear President Bush' rather than 'Dear Dr. Laura.' Following the 'Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging' close of the Dr. Laura letter, the updated version addressed to the President continued 'It must be really great to be on such close terms with God and his son, even better than you and your own Dad, eh?'Got a tip or a rumor? Contact us here.Snopes Delivered to Your Inbox: Feedback Fact Checker: David Mikkelson Published: 9 March 2004 Updated: 25 May 2016
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