Immorality may not be on the ropes, but it has met a worthy and surprising opponent—a conservative Jewish woman with a secular radio talk show out of Los Angeles. Her daily program draws upward of 18 million listeners.
With a Ph.D. in physiology from Columbia, Dr. Laura Schlessinger rails against abortion, adultery, and other moral ills. U.S. News & World Report called Dr. Laura, also a licensed therapist, an “expert provocateur.” She can be bold, sassy, and curt when a caller asks about a moral dilemma: “On a scale of one to ten, how high on the stupid meter are you going to rate today?”
Dr. Laura’s stand on volatile issues has drawn the ire of many. Although pastors would not agree with Dr. Laura’s opinions on every issue, she is an ally for righteous living; she has captured the moral attention of an anything-goes culture. Leadership’s Dave Goetz talked with Dr. Laura about what’s behind today’s interest in morality.
How do you describe what you do on the air?
Dr. Laura: I preach, teach, and nag. I remind people that the reason they’re unhappy, frustrated, and their lives are in chaos is because they’re not focused on how to make their lives purposeful.
When I listened to your show recently I noticed a large percentage of the calls related to sexual issues. Why?
It’s mostly about inappropriate sex, and that’s because the rules about it are gone. Sex is an intense animal drive. People think that if they feel—forgive me—horny about somebody, that that somehow is an omen to act on that feeling. I try to explain that it means absolutely nothing other than the animal part of us wants to reproduce or have a jolly. That’s it. But any animal can do that. Frogs can do it.
To make it meaningful and important, sex has to be within a covenant. The feminists were stupid to think that women could have meaningless sex like the guys, that somehow that would enrich women’s lives.
Instead it gave men much more freedom and women much more bondage.
Exactly. Single women with kids out of wedlock—that’s the number-one thing it gave women.
Many religious leaders have been saying, “Don’t have an abortion,” for years. Do people hear in your words something different than what they hear in their church or synagogue?
Some clergy communicate that maybe abortion is a sin, but then they give an out—”But I understand if you’re in a certain emotional state … “
I’m absolute. I sound more like Leviticus. Unless mom is going to die (in Jewish law, if the woman is going to die, then the pregnancy has to be terminated), the fetus is a life.
I’ve heard you imply that if you belong to a religion, you don’t have the right to select what you will do in terms of morality.
I take that position on the air, absolutely. Otherwise, religion is a camp, and you’re signing up for a different elective: “I like this. I don’t like that. I don’t like the kosher thing. It’s very annoying.”
On what is your morality based?
It is based on Jewish law, which is what Christian law is really based on.
One woman called who was dating a married guy. I said, “You’re helping break up his family.”
“Well, he’s the one breaking the vows,” she said.
“You don’t think you have a part in breaking the vows?”
“No.”
I said, “Thou shalt not covet. Pretend he’s her ox.”
Dead silence. There was absolutely no way to get around that. When reason and compassion don’t work, I pull out the law.
“Now, why do you think that law was given?” I continued.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said.
“Do you know which commandment it is?”
“No.”
I said, “There’s a reason for this law. This is part of how we destroy society. Without that law it would mean that somebody listening to this show, once you get this married guy, will think you’re fair game. Is that the world you want to live in? Or do you want to live in a world where everybody’s moral but you?”
What does it take to convince callers who haven’t been living morally to make the switch?
One, they have been listening for months or years to my pounding. Finally they were in a situation, and ricocheting around their head was, “What would Dr. Laura say? What would Dr. Laura say?” It’s as though I became Jiminy Cricket.
The preponderance of the letters I get say, “I keep listening, listening, listening. At first I rebelled. At first I was angry.”
But my pounding gets through, because they know somewhere that they respect me, that I’m right. After a time of pounding, I’m in their heads.
Two, they’re in the midst of something traumatic, difficult, highly emotionally charged, and they hear something on the show that, poom, puts them over the edge; they make a change.
Have you ever been stumped by a question?
I don’t charge myself with having to fix whatever people call in with. I try to find the principle involved and then say, “You make it work in your context.”
I assume if I give them the principle, they will be creative. To take all the responsibility from a caller is arrogant.
Would you respond differently to people if you were in the same room with them?
I wouldn’t be half as tough. Callers have privacy. They have anonymity. They don’t have to see my face. When you see the face of somebody being strong with you, it’s harder to bear because it makes you feel like a little kid with a parent who’s mad. I can get away with a lot more usefulness, actually, because callers can’t see me.
Also, callers have a relationship of trust and respect with me long before they pick up the phone. That’s why they picked up the phone. Nobody calls the first day they hear the show.
What is the hope you offer callers?
I tell them, “This you can do. It’s going to be hard and difficult and painful and embarrassing and make you sick and nervous. But you’ll come out on the other end—and feel a hell of a lot better about yourself.”
It’s a tremendous effort to avail yourself of a righteous life. It is difficult. It is demanding. It’s so rewarding, though, and I think it makes life easier and more comfortable, except for those who would tear you down, who cannot tolerate people trying to achieve a standard.
Do you feel pressure to live a more moral life than others to give your words credibility?
No. Because I do it for me. That’s my relationship to God. I could fool you any day. But I don’t think God turns off his Internet. I never cheat on an unkosher piece of food, thinking, “Gee, nobody saw me,” because that’s not relevant. What’s relevant is I have committed myself to an ever-growing, holier life.
In your book How Could You Do That? you take a dig at pastors. Why?
I’ve said to clergy, “I understand this is an era where the people in front of you are trying to dictate to you what you say to them. But this is not your job; this is helping the decline, and you’ve got to be a leader. You’ve got to be religious leaders, not camp counselors who try to make everybody happy so they will come back next summer.”
Immediately I got letters from pastors and a few priests (but not one rabbi), saying, “You’re absolutely right. I’m no longer going to marry people who are shacking up. I’m no longer going to do this or that.”
I feel like the biblical prophet who bangs pots and makes a loud noise and says, “This is not right.” I’m in the kitchen, pots banging.
Could a preacher talk about moral issues the way you do?
Probably not. I see myself in cahoots with the clergy: I rattle people’s assumptions that they ought to get away with certain things. But if pastors nagged as much as I, they would maybe not be perceived as those who could gently take people into the night.
Why do people call you knowing they’re going to get blasted?
There are times when I will turn off the microphone and say to my engineer, “Do you believe he called me?” Sometimes I’ll say to the caller, “Have you listened to this show before?”
Those callers want me to convince them. I compare it to someone, for example, who knows he should stop smoking, but can’t; he doesn’t have the inner wherewithal to make that decision, much less follow it through.
So they call me and argue with me. They’re playing the Devil’s advocate. They’re making me them, and they play their weakest part. Their weakest part argues with me until I convince them.
So because there are no cultural mores, people can’t muster an internal dialogue about whether something like an affair is right or wrong?
Totally. I say to people, “You don’t know this is wrong?” They don’t because there are no rules any more.
Other than what you get in church, where are the rules? See a handicapped parking space? “Hey, it’s the only one; I’ll take it. Don’t bother me. I’m busy.”
God left us with the will to choose, the ability to choose, the freedom to choose, and we don’t always choose right. Which is why we don’t have heaven on earth.
To me, the end product is that the examined life is worth living. I’m trying to get people to be profoundly, deeply happy instead of just giddy for a moment.
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