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August 4, 2000/3 Av 5760, Vol. 52, No.47
Don't let Dr. Laura steal the show
SARAH BLUSTAIN
Special to Jewish News
She's mean, she's popular. And she's more political than her shocked listeners realize.
Pat Buchanan has floated her name for running mate. Gay activists have made her a target in the battle for marriage rights. And Christian lobbyists and proselytizers are carrying her flag high.
She promotes herself as a simple conservative advice-giver whose "moral health show" sends out common sense to as many as 20 million listeners each week.
But take a closer look at "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger, the 53-year-old bulldog of a Jewish woman who is spreading her anti-abortion, anti-feminist and anti-gay message. Schlessinger, it turns out, is no milquetoast Dear Abby, and she's no shock-jock Howard Stern. She's part of the national political movement to impose conservative religious values on all Americans.
There are reasons why women, Jews and all minorities should be alarmed.
My boss, Susan Weidman Schneider, editor-in-chief of LILITH, a Jewish feminist magazine, echoes her concern: "It should alarm all women and men who have campaigned for gender equity that Laura Schlessinger is preaching her retrograde message to large audiences daily - and that she identifies herself as a Jewish woman while she's at it. We run the risk of having other Americans imagine that her views are mainstream Jewish views, which they are not."
What is important to note about Schlessinger is her extraordinary ties to the powerful political lobby of the Christian right. Many of these groups, calling themselves "family values" organizations, have thrown their public support behind Schlessinger. She has preached in their churches and on major televangelist programs, and has received their awards.
Lobbying groups like the influential Family Research Council, founded by one-time presidential candidate Gary Bauer, have paid for advertising defending her against the outrage of gay activists. Evangelical Christian publishers of books and magazines have featured her words, and Pat Buchanan had suggested she would make a good running mate on the Reform Party ticket.
"What our opposition has done," comments Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal, "is to take over the radio and TV talk shows, preaching this very hard line. They are marketing themselves as psychologists and religious figures and people to counsel people in their time of need ... but I think it is a well-orchestrated (political) strategy."
The burden today is on Jewish groups, women's groups and others to join gay and lesbian activists in voicing their concern about Schlessinger and the constituencies she represents. These constituencies have made significant inroads into our national dialogue and politics. They have promoted prayer in public schools and hanging the Ten Commandments in government courthouses.
Schlessinger has gone on the warpath against all those who benefited from the liberations of the last four decades. We should watch carefully what she, with her Jewish star dangling so prominently around her neck, is asking for. We all just might get it.
Sarah Blustain is associate editor of LILITH.
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