By dying, on August 21 Dr. James Dobson, evangelical thought leader, anti-gay activist, and staunch defender of child abuse, did the only good thing he ever did with his life.

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His most famous work, 1970’s Dare To Discipline, stands as both his entry into the  public consciousness and as an early salvo of his views. It endorses hitting toddlers as young as two and three years old (pg. 40 & 41, et al)*. It praises trauma bonding–which is classified as a form of abuse by many actual practicing psychologists, for the record–as a genuine expression of parental love (ch.1 p.2,  pg. 23), bemoans the lack of stick-beatings in the classroom (ch. 3, pg.81) and spends a good deal of a book on raising children decrying the ACLU (pg. 87), the  agency of women (pg. 39 & 40, et al), birth control (pg. 146), and most if not all  expressions of human sexuality (ch. 5).

A follow-up, 1978’s The Strong Willed Child, begins by recounting a time he beat the shit out of his dog (p. 11-14)  and goes on to extol the virtues of doing the same to children.