FI Winter 2000-01 Pages-ap 11/15/00 2:28 AM Page 43 Don’t Listen to HER ADVICE IS UNSOUND, HYPOCRITICAL, AND CRUEL Dr. Laura Sharon Presley maliciously asserted: ”If she was my daughter, I’d probably put her up for adoption. .When she makes her marriage vows, and her husband has sex with someone else, let’s see if she thinks that this philosophy works. She also suggested that the r. Laura Schlessinger may just be the most girl be “sacrificed,” Inca style!4 Apparently “family values” controversial talk-show guru ever to hit the air only count if the members of the family toe the party line. waves, surpassing even conservative Rush DLimbaugh as both the most loved and most hated personality DR. LAURA’S MORALISTIC VALUES on radio (and now television). Her claim that homosexuals are “Schlessinger’s platform,” says Sarah Blustain in Lilith, the “biological errors” created a firestorm that resulted in a thriv- independent Jewish women’s magazine, “could have been ing anti-Schlessinger Web site (stopdrlaura.com) but intense written by the Religious Right.”5 Called moralistic and dog- support from the Religious Right. matic by her detractors, Dr. Laura, a convert to Orthodox At least 250,000 people attempt to call her radio program Judaism, stridently asserts that abortions are murder, sex out- every week, while 18 to 20 million more tune in to hear her on side of marriage is a sin, no one should divorce except in the topics that range from relationships to religious values. Her Web case of abuse, and that mothers should stay home with their site dispenses not only her five best-selling books, but coffee children. The accusation that Dr. Laura is moralistic is hard to mugs, tapes, T-shirts (“I am my kid’s mom,” one coyly proclaims) dispute. On the subject of sex before marriage, for example, and techniques for political activism. In spite of outraged she writes in her book The Ten Commandments, “Holy sex is protests from gays, lesbians, and other supporters of tolerance, between husband and wife. .Unholy sex is everything else.”6 Paramount put her television show on the air in September 2000. Hopping full-tilt onto the “family values” bandwagon, she MEAN DR. LAURA smugly decries women who dare to have careers instead of staying home with their children (in spite of the fact that she Though seen as a dispenser of indispensable advice by millions, has a teenage son at home). Reinforcing this advice, her Web Dr. Laura claims she doesn’t give advice. “I preach, teach, and site has had links to magazines and organizations such as At 1 nag,” she was quoted as saying in 1999. “But it’s not a shrink Home Mother magazine and Full Time Parents.org. show. I give my never-to-be humble opinion.” And humble she is Being married is not only the sole permissible ticket to sex not. “I’m very grateful that God put me in the right place,” she but apparently to mental stability as well. In August 2000, a piously expounds. Curt and abrupt with callers who don’t mea- man who needed a trustworthy executor for his will called in sure up, she is quick to impart not only her opinions but abra- to her radio program to ask Dr. Laura if she thought he should sive and even abusive commentary as well. She has not hesitat- name his sister. When Dr. Laura learned that the sister was ed to call those she sees as morally unfit, “sluts,” “bums,” and, not married, she advised the man to pick a married person. A Lilith according to magazine, “sickening,” “selfish,” “stupid,” single woman, she claimed, would be too unfocused and unsta- 2 “gutless,” “termite,” and “pig” as well. ble.7 Apparently, based on her comments in this program, Dr. Dr. Laura’s intolerance is not confined merely to name-call- Laura imagines that single young women are all dithery and ing. Besides trashing gays as “deviants,” and same-sex mar- intent on only one thing—getting a man. Ironically, social sci- riages as “despicable,” she has said of feminists, “They nau- ence research actually shows that married women have high- 3 seate and sicken me.” Even more shocking was her treatment er rates of depression and instability than single women.8 But of a Connecticut eighth-grader for an award-wining essay on Dr. Laura, as we will soon see in more detail, is not troubled by free speech on the Internet. Attacking the girl by name, she what legitimate research shows. Dr. Sharon Presley has a Ph.D. in social psychology. She Religious morality looms large in her thinking. It is a reli- teaches psychology and critical thinking courses at gious point of view that brooks no opposition. When Skeptic California State University, Hayward, and is the magazine published its issue on the “God Question,” she Executive Director of Resources for Independent Thinking demanded that her name be dropped from its editorial board. (www.rit.org), a nonprofit educational organization. Her When Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer called to discuss her forthcoming book, Think for Yourself, will be published by resignation, she replied: “There is a God. Period. End of dis- Ronin Press later this year. cussion.”9 Shermer pointed out that the arguments presented 43 http://www.secularhumanism.org fi winter 2000/01 FI Winter 2000-01 Pages-ap 11/15/00 2:28 AM Page 44 in the magazine came from writings of theologians and philoso- So it’s only fair to ask whether Dr Laura’s psychological phers of the last 2,000 years, but she angrily responded, advice has any merit. That depends on the advice. Some of the “Arrogant all. God is not open for discussion.” When Shermer ideas in her earliest books, Ten Stupid Things Women Do to asked “Which God?” her answer was “the God of Abraham” Mess Up Their Lives and Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives is consistent with “kick- in-the-butt” cognitive therapy, as prac- Dr. Laura’s pious brand of morality allows ticed by psychologists such as Albert for no weaknesses, no dissension, and Ellis. (The message: Take responsibility for your beliefs and your mistakes. You no slack. But does she measure up? can change if you want to. Now do it.) The demand for individuals to stop playing (which she clarified to include Christianity and Islam, as well victim and blaming others for their plight is recognized by as Judaism). To hell, apparently both figuratively and literally, many psychologists as desirable. Research shows that cogni- with Hinduism, Buddhism, and the rest of the world’s religions. tive therapy is the single best treatment for depression, for example. However, calling people who are struggling with their DR. LAURA AS HYPOCRITE life issues “pigs,” “sluts,” and “stupid” goes far beyond even Dr. Laura’s pious brand of morality allows for no weaknesses, what the irascible Dr. Ellis advocates, and may represent a no dissension, and no slack. But does she measure up? Not breach of psychotherapeutic ethics, which call for respecting according to her detractors. One of the criticisms most leveled one’s clients. against her is hypocrisy, and with good reason. Under the heading “Doctor, Heal Thyself: Hypocrisy in Lauraland,” the DR. LAURA VS. THE RESEARCH Newsguy Web site lists the following tidbits: More serious than Dr. Laura’s name-calling and fudging about • Laura and the Sanctity of Marriage: Laura started dating her credentials is her willingness to play fast and loose with her current husband, Lew Bishop, while he was still married to research. Increasingly, her on-air time is spent on parenting. someone else and lived with him for nine years before they got Much of what she says is both out of sync with social science married.10 research and pernicious as well. In her latest book, Parenting • Laura and Family Values: she has not spoken to her moth- by Proxy: Don’t Have Them If You Can’t Raise Them, she con- er in 15 years and is estranged from her sister.11 tinues her shrill attacks on abortion, birth control, feminism, • She claims that women with young children should stay and, most especially, single mothers and mothers who work out- home rather than have a career, but she is on the radio five side the home.14 days week and recently began a television show, in spite of the On air, she has backed up her rants by citing studies from fact that she has a teenage son at home. Gary Bauer’s ultra-conservative Family Research Council.15 • She will not discuss her past on her show, claiming that it The FRC is an advocacy group, not a social science research is irrelevant now, but, as several critics have pointed out, she institute, and hardly an objective source. refuses to take responsibility for her “wild” past and angrily In Parenting by Proxy, the citations aren’t much better. dismisses charges of hypocrisy. Most of those that support her position come from newspaper Schlessinger’s brand of moralism apparently includes articles that are hardly persuasive or authoritative. Were the stretching the truth. In her book The Ten Commandments studies reputable? Was the research described correctly or (ironically enough), she calls herself a “licensed psychothera- was it distorted? We don’t know. However, my experience with pist.”12 Her Ph.D., however is in physiology, not psychology. newspaper articles on behavioral topics makes me very suspi- Though she does have an MFCC (a certificate in marriage, cious indeed of such sources.