Laura Schlessinger Pics

It has always been my opinion that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a sanctimonious, self-righteous, hypocritical, bitter woman.  More about Dr. Laura, later in this post).

Anyway, to get back to my story . . . During her radio show, Dr Laura said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

The following is purportedly an open letter to Dr. Laura which was posted on the Internet.  Legitimate or not, I think it’s pretty funny:

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14) We first ran into this letter in the online world in May 2000, just after the state of Vermont permitted homosexual couples to contract “civil unions,” an official recognition that imparted to same-sex partners the legal benefits of marriage, such as the right to be regarded by hospitals as their partners’ next of kin, to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners, and to file joint tax returns. This “everything that is marriage but the name” decision pleased some and angered others, resulting in many heated opinions about same-sex unions in specific, and homosexuality in general, to be bruited in countless public forums. Dr. Schlessinger has attracted both adherents and detractors during her years of public life. Through her radio show, she dispenses advice to callers, usually from a conservative point of view. She was an Orthodox Jew at the time the letter quoted above was written (but she announced her renunciation of that faith on her show in July 2003) and often draws upon the Bible or religious teachings for guidance. She is blunt and forthright in her replies, viewing most situations as inherently black or white, right or wrong. Laura Schlessinger is neither a medical doctor nor accredited in a discipline one would traditionally look to for the generation of expertise in moral, societal, or spiritual matters (such as divinity, psychology, or sociology). She earned her doctorate in physiology from Columbia University and practiced as a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor for more than a decade (although her California Marriage Family and Child Counseling license has been inactive for several years). In 1998 nude photos of Laura Schlessinger were displayed on the Internet. During the commotion over those pictures, their source was revealed  to be veteran Los Angeles radio broadcaster Bill Ballance, a man who was pivotal in getting Schlessinger her start in radio. Ballance claimed he photographed her in 1978, while the pair of them were having an affair during Schlessinger’s first marriage. Some see Schlessinger’s use of “Doctor” as misleading and view her current stance on the sanctity of marriage and the wrongness of adultery as hypocrisy in light of her decades-earlier affair. Others believe the title of “Doctor” should not be restricted only to those in the medical field and hold that people can change over time, even to the point of full repudiation of previous behaviors and beliefs. The “letter” to Dr. Laura may or may not have actually been sent to her, but in any case it is best read as an essay offering a counter to the “homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so” argument. Though it purports to be addressed to just one person (Dr. Laura), it is clearly meant for a general audience.  The authorship of the letter is still a bit of a mystery, although the name “Kent Ashcraft” (or “J. Kent Ashcraft”) keeps coming up. Confusing the issue further, because the letter has been circulated as widely as it has in e-mail, in some versions the signature blocks of forwarders have come to be part of the mailing, leading those who receive those versions farther down the line to assume those people were the writers of the piece. Then there’s the case of Jim Kauffman; his signature was deliberately appended by someone without his knowledge, causing him to receive many a phone call and e-mail from those who have taken him for essay’s author. In August 2003 a journalist for the Halifax Daily News presented the Dr. Laura letter” as her own writing. For presenting the piece in her column as her own by signing it “Yours truly, Jane,” reporter Jane Kansas was fired from that publication. (Her version also changed “Dear Dr. Laura” to “Dear Holy Father” plus added some local references.) The key to this essay is its premise, not the pedantic details of it of how it is defended. Simply put, the letter points out a logical flaw in the “homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so” argument: if homosexuality is wrong because it goes against God’s law as outlined in the Bible, why aren’t any number of activities now viewed as innocuous but once regarded as unacceptable also offenses against God’s law? How can one part of Leviticus be deemed as etched in stone when other parts have been discarded as archaic? The essay completes with the sarcastic rejoinder, “Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.” While this is presented as a rebuke meant for just one, it is a general reminder that many belief systems pick and choose their way through Biblical teachings in determining what is right and what is wrong, with those assessments changing over time even within sects that pride themselves on strict adherence to the Good Book. I’m sorry – ; hear it one more time, perfectly clearly: If you’re gay or a lesbian, it’s a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative and valuable is all true. The error is in your inability to relate sexually intimately, in a loving way to a member of the opposite sex – ; it is a biological error. In the wake of President George W. Bush’s election to a second term, in the fall of 2004 the piece was circulated yet again, this time addressed “Dear President Bush” rather than “Dear Dr. Laura.” Following the “Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging” close of the Dr. Laura letter, the updated version addressed to the President continued “It must be really great to be on such close terms with God and his son, even better than you and your own Dad, eh?” In the mid-1970s while working in the labs at USC, she met Lewis G. Bishop, a professor of neuro physiology who was married and the father of three children.  According to divorce filings, Schlessinger and Bishop began an affair. Bishop left his wife and moved in with Schlessinger. They lived together as an unmarried couple for approximately nine years, and Schlessinger tried to get pregnant after reversing an earlier tubal ligation and suffering an ectopic pregnancy. Bishop and Schlessinger married in early 1985 with Schlessinger announcing at the wedding that she was pregnant. Schlessinger bore their only child, Deryk Schlessinger, in November 1985, when she was 38. Her son enrolled in Hillsdale College in the fall of 2002; he subsequently left college and joined the United States Army under its 18x Special Forces contract program. Schlessinger was estranged from her sister for many years, and had not spoken to her mother for 18 to 20 years before her death in 2002. Schelssinger’s mother’s body was found in her Beverly Hills condo approximately two months after she died from heart disease. In 2006, Schlessinger wrote that she had been attacked in a “vulgar, inhumane manner by media types” because of the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, and that false allegations had been made that she was unfit to dispense family values advice. She explained that she had not mourned the deaths of either of her parents because she had no emotional bond to them. She described her father as “petty, insensitive, mean, thoughtless, demeaning and downright unloving”. Her mother, she said, had “pathological pride”, “was never grateful and would always find something to criticize,” and “constantly expressed disdain for men, sex and love”. She credited her father with being charming, with giving her the drive to succeed, and said her mother was beautiful as a young woman. She said her mother was the one who broke off their relationship. Schlessinger had not been a believer in religion until she and her son began practicing Conservative Judaism in 1996. In 1998, Schlessinger, Bishop, and their son converted to Orthodox Judaism, and began instruction under Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa, Ontario. During this time, Schlessinger sometimes used Jewish law and examples to resolve the moral dilemmas of her callers. She occasionally clarified ethical and moral issues with her local Orthodox Rabbi Moshe D. Bryski, before mentioning them on the air. She was embraced by many in the politically-conservative segment of Orthodox Judaism for bringing more awareness of Orthodoxy to her radio show. Some of her expressed views were explicitly religious, and are referenced her 1999 book The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God’s Laws in Everyday Life. Although her other books have stressed the importance of morality, they are more secular in nature. In July 2003, Schlessinger announced on her show that she was no longer an Orthodox Jew. In a series of monologues following that announcement, she explained that she did not feel a connection with God, and felt frustrated by the effort she had put into following the religion. Her religious approach on the show lessened substantially after this announcement. In December 2006, she stated that she was outraged that a Rabbi was demanding that a menorah be put in the Seattle International airport adjacent to a Christian holiday display. Schlessinger then said that she would be putting a Christmas tree up in her own house. [W]hat Dr. Laura says on her radio show; the “advice” she gives to the many people who come to her for help seems to heavily conflict with the way Dr. Laura has lived and continues to live her life. This has led me to conclude that Dr. Laura has another personality, who for the purposes of this bit we shall name “Ms. Schlessinger”.