About James Dobson, Focus on the Family
UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES
Consider the story of two book publishing companies, Focus on
the Family, Incorporate(;, and Word, Incorporated, one of the
largest publishing houses serving the conservative Protestant
world. Both solicit, sign, publish, and pay authors for
manuscripts and then publish and sell those books in commercial
bookstores, making a profit in the process. Both solicit
manuscripts from exactly the same pool of author-- those
written by conservative Christians on subjects that would be
considered of religious or spiritual help to the reader. Both
produce books for sale in exactly the same bookstores. Both
advertise and promote. Both enjoy revenue from such sales.
However, one of these companies does all the above and pays its
fair share of taxes while the other insists that it should not
have to pay taxes and does not do so. This second business
claims that it has a right as a 501(c)3 to opt out of its share
of taxes but still uses the government services that taxes pay
for. Why? What is the difference between Focus and Word with
regard to the book publishing enterprises of each? Is one a
national treasure like the Grand Canyon that we've all decided
to preserve and subsidize while Word is on its own to sink or
swim in the great competitive marketplace? Are we, as American
taxpayers, interested in digging a little deeper into our
pockets when our tax bill arrives in order to support the
publishing efforts of Focus on the Family, all the while
discriminating against the equally valuable work done by Word
by not subsidizing their enterprise?
Furthermore, taxes arc not some needless surcharge we inflict
on wealthy business people for the fun of it, after which we
lock the loot in our national treasury. Taxes pay for services
that businesses need and receive from government agencies. The
fact is that Focus and Word expect and require exactly the same
city, state, and federal services in order to conduct their
businesses. One of them pays for those services and one does
not. Some of the local property taxes on a company pave the
streets in front of its offices. Word pays for the streets its
employees use. Dobson claims he should not. Those same taxes
pay the electric bill for the lights on those streets. And they
construct and maintain the water lines that feed those offices
and the sewage lines that drain them. If either corporate staff
dials 911, the police or fire fighters will do everything in
their power to assist those employees with a crisis. One pays
and one does not. Why do we tolerate the unfairness of one
company paying for what it uses, while the other demands that
everyone else in the community pay a portion of its bill when
both compete nose to nose in the marketplace? Why do we accept
the uneven competitive playing field created by this inequality?
Christopher Chang, a member of the staff of the city of Pomona,
California, office of economic development supplied me with a
report analyzing the precise impact on that city of the loss of
property taxes, not to mention other taxes levied on normal
businesses, when Focus on the Family was occupying office space
in Pomona several years ago but not paying taxes. The report
shows that Focus owned property with a valuation of $5,115,660,
on which the property taxes during their three-year stay in
Pomona would have totaled approximately $150,000. An estimated
$150,000 in city services were used, but were not paid for by
Focus on the Family. So who paid them?
The median annual household income in Pomona was $31,000 when
Focus was located there. Pomona's population was 75 percent
minorities. So minority families trying to survive in the Los
Angeles area on $31,000 a year were given no choice but to
pitch in a little extra so millionaire businessman Dobson, who
lived twenty miles away in an upper-class white neighborhood,
didn't have to pay any property taxes. Focus has not been able
to sell its Pomona headquarters building since leaving town for
Colorado in 1991. So that piece of property is still off the tax
rolls to this day, and those neighbors are still paying for the
street light in front of the vacant complex at 801 Corporate
Center Drive. We ran do better than that.
Furthermore, doesn't this unfair aspect of our tax system force
non-Christians to pay for public services used by a Christian
company? Isn't this a breach of the separation of church and
state because the state is allowing Focus on the Family not to
pay for services it uses while requiring other citizens to
support an organization with a decidedly sectarian agenda? Said
another way, Focus on the Family actively lobbies Congress
against ensuring basic civil rights for gays. However, gay men
and lesbians in Colorado Springs are forced to subsidize a
portion of the cost of police and fire protection, street
maintenance, etc., that Focus uses.
I talked recently with Jarrell McCracken, the founder and
former CEO of Word, Incorporated. I asked McCracken if it ever
bothered him that Dobson demands tax breaks that give him an
unfair business advantage over competitors like himself. His
response was, "Yes, and I've thought about that a lot. Anybody
who exploits a tax advantage like that has taken it out of the
context in which it was given. It becomes a corruption of that
intent when it's taken to a commercial level. Jim can say that
everything he makes goes into his nonprofit ministry. But the
other side of that coin is that he has entered the commercial
religious publishing field as a competitor. Not only is he a
competitor, he is a competitor with a business advantage. He
pays no taxes. I think that's a corruption of the intent of the
tax-free status."
So what do we do? I suggest we work to create a fairer society
for American business. It will be an uphill struggle because
people like Dobson will wrap themselves in the cloak of
religion, and Americans have a tradition of not taxing
religious enterprises. A geologist named Dan Bridges and a
lawyer named John Murphy know firsthand about that struggle.
They placed on the 1996 Colorado ballot a measure that would
have eliminated the tax-exempt status of all nonprofit,
including churches. The measure drew support from one out of
every five voters, a surprisingly strong showing for the first
public vote on such a bill in any state in our history. Had the
measure been more narrowly focused on corporate businesses such
as Dobson's, rather than including churches, it's possible Jim
might be paying for his own street lights by now.
The most dishonorable criticisms of Colorado's fair share tax
idea that eighty thousand petitioners placed on the ballot came
from our very own street fighter, James Dobson. He devoted a
lengthy segment of an October 1996 national radio broadcast to
advancing two responses to Murphy and Bridges that were
stereotypical of the way Dobson does politics. First, he
inaccurately defined, then demonized, their motives:
John Patrick Michael Murphy has made it very clear that he
resents the message that comes from conservative organizations
like Focus on the Family, 'that's the source of the fire. He's
going all over the state trying to promote this thing. I
understand he spent sixty thousand dollars of his own money
trying to get it passed. First of all to get the initiative signed
and to get the issue on the ballot. What motivates him? Why?
Well, he has very liberal views and he strongly resents
organizations like ones that stand for a pro-family and
pro-moral message. So it is an effort to get the state to begin
to tax not only those organizations, but then all religious
organizations-- put a little pressure on 'cm. I guess the
implication is that even more taxes could be assessed in the
future. But that's the bottom line of what's really going on
here.
It will come as no surprise to you at this point to ]cam that
when I talked at length with both Murphy and Bridges, I
discovered that Dobson had never even spoken with the men whose
personal motives he castigated in front of five million radio
listeners.
Dobson's second strategy for avoiding taxation was equally
fallacious. He characterized Colorado's initiative as a strategy
not to create fair taxation but rather to gag the message of
organizations like Focus on the Family. He told his national
audience, "John Patrick Michael Murphy has used us as exhibit A
regarding why this amendment ought to pass because we use some
of the money that is sent to us to support our public policy
views: our views on abortion, and pornography and other things.
That's true. Does he want to stifle those who say things he
doesn't agree with? Is that the idea?"
In fact, that was not the idea. Murphy and Bridges are as
pro-family as Dobson is. By the way, in the process of
attacking the initiative, Dobson acknowledged that Focus on the
Family's Colorado annual property tax, were they to pay it,
would be $550,000. For now, he's content for someone else pay
it.
UNFAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES
Another specific problem that our experience with Dobson
highlights is the ability of so-called religious organizations
to defy the standards of fair employment practices our society
has established: to invade the privacy of a company's
employees, to coerce them unfairly with threats of termination,
to breach even internal company policy, and to obstruct justice
and block all avenues to due process when employment grievances
arise all in the name of religion, Surely we can provide
American workers a fairer workplace than that.
A man I will call Dan Huntley, to preserve his anonymity, is an
acquaintance for whom I have a special appreciation. He wrote me
a particularly caring and supportive letter at the darkest
moment of my conflict with Dobson. I could no longer find work
in my profession due to the false rumors Dobson was spreading
that I had divorced to marry my secretary and that I had made up
false allegations and frivolously sued him. Clients with whom I
was building a consulting practice bailed out of all sides of
my boat. One highly respected religious radio station manager
wrote a colleague, "If Dobson fired him why would anyone hire
him?" Eventually, it became clear that I could not continue
supporting my family in my chosen field and I started over at
forty-five years of age. Dan guessed what I was going through
and wrote an unsolicited letter on September 7, 1990, offering
his commiseration.
In the letter he related his own struggle with a 501(c)3
religious broadcasting organization where he had been an on-air
talk show host. He wrote,
I was terminated promptly and with no due process or hearing
because of a letter-writing campaign directed at the station by
hyper-conservatives who were disturbed by the fact that I openly
supported my wife's feminist ideas and activities. 1, too,
decided to go public. Rather than protect the guilty, I decided
to let my colleagues know exactly what had happened. One of our
problems within conservative Christian circles is that we tend
to cover up these ugly affairs "for the sake of the ministry."
Unlike you, I decided not to file suit because I wanted to
continue to work in my field. What I did not realize was that I
would be blacklisted anyway, for telling the truth.
One solution, that we eliminate the civil legal immunity of
hybrid religious companies like Dobson's, would be fair but
very difficult to enact as law. But there's an alternate
approach to resolving this problem that may be more practical.
It is called the principle of "fair disclosure" or "informed
consent," and it is at work as close to you as the nearest pack
of cigarettes. The government requires that you be told by
cigarette manufacturers that, among other things, "Smoking by
pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and
low birth weight." None of the manufacturer's or the consumer's
freedoms has been abridged by this fair disclosure. The only
thing that changed when the law mandated such announcements was
that consumers would now be given facts important to their
well-being so that they could purchase with their eyes wide open.
We need a similar law requiring that 501(c)3s provide on every
employment form, and in every employee handbook, a statement to
the effect that civil rights are handled differently by such
organizations than by other employers. Such a disclosure might
read like this: "Attorney General's Notice: Nonprofit
corporations are not required by law to conform to the same
standards of fair labor practices as are other employers.
Furthermore, should a dispute arise regarding your rights,
nonprofits are not accountable to civil courts regarding the
resolution of complaints in the same manner as are other
corporations."
Allow me to make one final observation about taxation and
employee rights. Doesn't it strike you as odd that religious
institutions should adopt policies and procedures designed to
allow them to do less rather than more than non-religious
organizations? A regular American corporation asks of itself,
"How can we compete successfully, address bottom line needs,
pay our share of taxes, and contribute to the community as a
good neighbor?" But Dobson asks, "How can I compete, address
the bottom line, and contribute to the community while avoiding
my share of taxes?" A regular business asks, "How can we meet
all federal and state obligations to our employees as well as
provide a competitive work environment that attracts and
retains the very best workers?" But Dobson asks, "How can I
attract and retain the very best while exempting myself from as
many of my nation's employee rights laws as possible?" If you
ran a religious organization, wouldn't you want to be known for
doing more for your community and your workers, in the name of
your God, rather than less?
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
By Gil Alexander-Moegerle
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