Good interview in that Dr. Schlessinger provided excellently cogent and straight answers to your questions.
You, however, committed a journalistic faux pas by prefacing your questions with phrases that hinted to the audience what you really think. You made no attempt to be objective. I think every reader will know exactly where you stand on these issues and principles.
How sad for you; how sad for America, that so many share your self-indulgent mindset. Yet there is hope, because millions want to hear what she is saying because truth resonates.
Aubrey B. McEachern
Please advise Jeanne McDowell that when she reports Laura Schlessinger is a "psychotherapist," she is in error. Even Schlessinger herself, once you pin her to the mat, will admit she holds no degrees in psychotherapy, and is totally unqualified to do anything other than her true calling: lonely hearts columnist.
Nag? Yes. Sharp-tongued? Venomously so. Harpy? Sorry, my word. But a psychotherapist? To paraphrase: "SHOW ME THE DEGREE!"
Brian Mellies
Dr. Laura's responses to the grilling session should serve as a model for how conservatives should handle a liberal reporter. She was concise, unwavering, and passionate. When leading questions were thrown at her, she simply stated the facts with a "I already explained that to you" sentiment. I've never been a big fan of Dr. Laura, but she moved up a notch in my book after nuking this reporter.
David Hattz
I loved the interview with Dr. Laura. Finally, a no-nonsense, tough-minded person who doesn't let the fear of rejection and ridicule rule her beliefs. She is a tremendously clear thinker who has a great insight into the human soul. The questions in the article were great, they were the typical forms of deceit that we practice, not just homosexuals, but as humans. Dr. Laura's knife is sharp and her scalpel tends to cut right to the core of who we are and how we were created. She doesn't seem to have a lot of time or patience in putting up with deceit or self-deception.
Jack Lynch
I can't believe you asked Dr. Laura if people should be able to say anything they want on talk radio. Liberal journalists believe they should be able to say whatever they want whenever they want. It is hypocritical that just because you don't like what highly conservative talk radio is saying that you start to raise questions of free speech in reverse of the normal journalistic rhetoric. There is protected speech and unprotected speech. You can't cry "Fire" in a movie theater, because it is a lie and endangers lives; neither should a pornographer be able to spread their woman-hating, demoralizing, greed-based message uncontained around the Internet. Radical gays should not be allowed to spread their malicious, hate-based lies about Dr. Laura, unquestioned by the liberal media. In the name of tolerance, radical gays have turned out to be the most hateful, intolerant group of all. The problem with the liberal flip-flop that's going on here is that it will bite who it's intended for first (conservatives and religious), then it will turn and bite the liberal and his Hollywood counterpart next.
The control you'll eventually persuade government you need will be the same control that stops all free speech, yours as well. All speech Internet, TV, radio and written should not have a place in the major media without balance and investigation. People can write and say what they want, but the public has to be free from unchecked, destructive rhetoric. To continually give radical gays the freeway to force their view of life on the general population and then want to silence talk radio is hypocrisy, intolerance and hatred of a magnitude that only Hitler would understand.
Tom Wood
It's a shame that in the 21st century, we're still debating the fact that homosexuality is or is not a sin and/or a moral issue. Dr. Laura and her supporters are still in the dark ages when it comes to gays and lesbians.
They are grasping for straws, hanging onto ignorance and trying so desperately to hurt so many by their mean and untrue words. If someone, Dr. Laura or anyone, was to talk about women and blacks in the way she talks about homosexuality, it would be called unacceptable and they would not have a platform on/in radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. etc. I wish that we as a society would recognize the fact of homosexuality is part of life and will never stop being so. If Dr. Laura and her supporters did some investigating they would find thousands of [gay] establishments, books, magazines, radio shows, TV shows, movies, people, parades, bars, social groups, neighborhoods, etc., in America and in every country on this planet.
We're not talking about a few gays, a few hundred gays, a few thousand gays! I'm forever amazed that we are living in the year 2000, homosexuality has been around for thousands of years and here in America came to society's doorstep openly over 50 years ago. I'd think we would be able to accept others as they are and move on to better ourselves and the planet.
David Bush
Once again our beloved news media attacks all that is good and wholesome. I wasn't one bit surprised at your hostile questioning of Dr. Laura. After serving for 18 months in Vietnam and seeing how the news media trashed us service personnel, then 15 years as a big-city cop, witnessing firsthand the news media onslaught of anti-cop writings, then now as a minister seeing how the news media loves to attack biblical Christianity, is it any wonder that I have so much resentment towards the news media?
I wonder if there will ever be a time in our society when the news media takes a couple of steps above supermarket tabloid journalism. Rest assured that more people listen to Dr. Laura than read your writings.
Frank Cromie
It is very encouraging to me when someone like Dr. Laura cleans the clock of the petulant interviewer you provided. Her clarity, restraint, and morality completely upstaged the heterophobic views of the interviewer.
Honesty will never be driven completely underground by the tactics of the media.
Jim Jackson
Do you not see how one-sided your questions are? Every one of your questions was attacking. Where is the journalism that simply presents the facts?
Robert W. Tull, Jr.
I'm a Dr. Laura listener and I think she's the greatest ! I can't wait for her TV show this fall. I wrote to Procter & Gamble and asked them to continue sponsoring her, but I guess they're just a bunch of chickens. Since they don't have a backbone, I will not purchase their products.
Finally, it's refreshing to see the truth printed, and a big thank-you to TIME for giving Dr. Laura and her fans that opportunity. Dr. Laura, you go, girl!
Diana Mills
I liked your interview with Dr Laura. She has guts, doesn't she especially after continuing in her chosen profession with an almost DAILY assault on her ideals, toughness, and opinions.
The tone of your questions was understandable given the general nature of press coverage in recent years, but seemed even more harsh than usual. I am totally guessing on this, but I suppose that this harshness would not be present if the interviewee were not a pillar of integrity and moral fortitude or at least someone who stands for them and rats out those who aren't.
Thanks for doing the interview. It made me realize what a challenge it is to be a moral person, especially female, in the USA. Thank goodness for Dr. Laura.
We could use a few million more people like her! Especially more full-time moms. And fewer "drop-the-kids-off-with-minimum-wage-day-care-workers" type of moms!
Mark Edwards
Just to let you know, that at least this reader found ALL of your questions to Dr. Laura to be leading, negative, condescending, and noncommunicative. It is as if you were "searching" for a way to entrap this leading radio communicator into making some "confession" that would serve your warped view of what would represent the news. Why anyone at your organization relies upon you to "report" the news is a total and complete mystery to me.
Phil Bowmar