A hagiography is an idealized or idolized biography. This hardly manifests itself more often and dramatically than in obituaries. Seems like almost everyone who dies was virtually a saint. John Paulk calls out the hagiography in the death announcements about James Dobson.
As a gay man who spent the first 35 of my years on this planet in the closet — also known as not living my authentic life — and coming out only after considering driving my car into a ravine, this post speaks to me on all levels.
John Paulk was once the nation’s leading “ex-gay” spokesperson with Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In 2013, he renounced conversion therapy, apologized to the LGBTQ+ community, and now lives openly as a gay man.
James Dobson’s Legacy Isn’t Family Values: It’s Broken Lives Like Mine.
By John Paulk
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, died today [Aug 21, 2025] at 89. Obituaries call him a giant of evangelical Christianity and a defender of families. That isn’t what I remember. I remember the damage.
Believing the Lie
For five years, I worked inside Focus on the Family. I was hired to direct the Homosexuality and Gender Division and created the Love Won Out Conference, which toured the country and sometimes drew more than a thousand people. From those stages, I introduced “ex-gays” who told audiences that homosexuality was a condition that could be changed if someone was motivated enough.
And I wasn’t just organizing the conferences — I was the poster boy. My story was held up as proof that “change” was real. I was placed on magazine covers, invited onto national television, and interviewed by countless major newspapers and radio programs. I wrote two books and spoke to audiences across the United States and Europe. My marriage, my children, and my faith were showcased as evidence that the movement worked.
But the truth was very different. I lied to the people I preached to, but I was lying to myself the most. I had become brainwashed by the false narrative that sexual orientation was changeable when it was not. Every headline that proclaimed me “cured” drove me deeper into despair, because I knew the truth hadn’t budged.
Behind the scenes, the torment was unbearable. I remember nights alone in hotel rooms before a conference, waiting to go onstage to tell my story of “freedom.” Instead of resting or preparing my notes, I would end up on the carpeted floor, curled in on myself, sobbing until my body heaved and I vomited. The weight of the lie crushed me: the truth I could not change, and the performance I was expected to deliver.
I remember one night in particular. The crowd was already gathering in the ballroom below, the sound of muffled voices rising through the vents like a distant hum. A knock at the door jolted me upright — an assistant checking to see if I was ready. I splashed water on my face, straightened my tie, and forced a smile into the mirror. But just minutes before, I had been begging God through tears: “Please lift this responsibility from me. I cannot do this to myself or others any longer.”
Then I walked out, took the stage, and told the crowd exactly what they came to hear.
That split — between the man on the stage and the man on the hotel room floor — nearly destroyed me.
Breaking Point
Faith had become a weapon aimed at people like me. We were told that “real Christians” must seek to be changed, that obedience meant erasing who we were. And when change never came, the conclusion was devastating: maybe we weren’t “real Christians” at all.
But the deepest harm wasn’t just mine. It was inflicted on young people who sat in those audiences and watched me on those stages and TV programs. Teenagers saw the posters, read the interviews, and thought: If he can do it, why can’t I? Parents brought their kids to us, hoping to “fix” them, only to leave with more shame and less love.
The science has confirmed what our lives were already shouting. The American Medical Association warns that conversion therapy doesn’t work and causes lasting harm. A 2022 meta-analysis in JAMA Pediatrics, covering nearly 200,000 LGBTQ people, found that 12 percent had been subjected to conversion efforts. Those young people reported double the rates of severe psychological distress and suicide attempts compared with their peers. The American Psychological Association likewise concluded in 2009: no evidence of change, overwhelming evidence of damage.
I didn’t need journals. My life was the proof. Conversion therapy didn’t make me straight. It made me ashamed, hollow, hopeless and suicidal.
Living Out Loud
I left the movement in 2003 and became a chef in Portland, Oregon. I never again spoke about my past or its aftermath. But in 2013–ten years later my struggle was to the point that if i didn’t do something to change all of this I was going to take my life. I couldn’t live with myself any longer. When I came out (again) it caused a national stir. After years of intense therapy and numerous national apologies to those for whom my message hurt, things began to mend.
Today, my life could not be more different. I live out loud. I walk in truth and authenticity. I no longer split myself between the man in public and the man in private — I am simply myself. I am a gay man–whole, safe, secure, and loved.
I spend my days being a voice for the disenfranchised and for those who feel lost without hope. I’ve dedicated myself to speaking truth, not lies, and to helping others untangle the shame I once carried.
And I am a joy-filled, loving father and grandfather. My children know me as I truly am — not a façade, not a “poster boy,” but a man who loves them without condition and who is loved in return.
I believe now what I wish I had known all along: that God loves us as we are and walks with us through the difficulties of life. Not as a punisher demanding change, but as a companion offering strength, grace, and love.
Reclaiming Life
When I read that James Dobson is being remembered as a man who cared about families, I think instead about the families torn apart by his message. Parents taught to fear their own children. Spouses trapped in marriages built on self-denial. Young people who looked at me — the smiling “success story” on the magazine cover — and walked away believing they were broken beyond repair because they couldn’t replicate my lie.
Dobson’s empire baptized cruelty and called it love. That is his true legacy.
But those of us who lived through it are writing a different ending. Our story is one of survival. It looks like telling the truth, even when it costs. It looks like acknowledging our complicity while naming the coercion. It looks like building lives where we no longer need to prove our worth.
For years, I parroted a message that broke me as much as anyone else. Today, I live in truth.
James Dobson has died. But we survived.
John Paulk can be reached at:
Johnpaulk9107@gmail.com
503-442-1111
