Maybe it’s time America began to . . . focus on the family.

L ast week, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and a longtime social conservative leader, died at 89. He devoted himself to many causes in his life. Perhaps chief among them was the importance of marriage and the family. There was a granular, practical element to this: He spent a great deal of time dispensing marriage and parenting advice. An additional element of his work, however, was in defending these essential institutions from redefinition and decay.

Appearing on Larry King Live in 2002, for example, Dobson warned of the social ills that would follow a redefinition of marriage. In 2004, he wrote:

To put it succinctly, the institution of marriage represents the very foundation of human social order. Everything of value sits on that base. When it is weakened or undermined, the entire superstructure begins to wobble.

He wrote this while he spearheaded attempts to enshrine marriage amendments in the constitutions of several states and pushed for a federal marriage amendment. President George W. Bush endorsed the effort, and many states did statutorily adopt the traditional definition of marriage. But this success was undone in 2015, when a bare 5–4 majority on the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in the landmark Obergefell decision, effectively negating whatever laws states had passed.

Throughout his advocacy on this issue (and others), Dobson was widely vilified. Dan Savage, a progressive columnist, once said his vision of hell was “a world run by haters like James Dobson.” The People for the American Way, Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, and many other progressive groups bitterly opposed him. In the wake of his death, progressives sneered and celebrated.

But here’s the thing: James Dobson was right. The issue to which he devoted over half a century of public life — the importance of the family — has been shown as a key indicator of positive social outcomes. One study shows that neighborhoods with two-parent families have a much lower incidence of crime. Others show a significant decrease in poverty for children who live in two-parent homes. In Get Married, Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, outlines the overwhelming social science data that demonstrate the importance of the family. But it’s not just conservatives saying this anymore. Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland and a self-described progressive, lays out similar evidence in her book The Two-Parent Privilege.

In the 1970s, when Dobson first began warning about the future of the family, 85 percent of children lived with both of their biological parents. Today only about 54 percent of 15–17-year-olds live with both of their parents. One in four children report being “estranged” from a parent.

Though there has been a welcome “vibe shift” in the last couple of years and a reversal of policies in many places, Dobson’s predictions about what would come after the redefinition of marriage have largely come true. Transgenderism, though waning in influence, has launched an assault on biological reality. Once-respected institutions glamorize polyamory. And young people are offered a range of permissible sexual identities. Meanwhile, America’s children suffer.

James Dobson was right. His lifelong commitment to healthy marriages and families — both through advice delivered in books, on the radio, and in conferences, as well as through his advocacy of their importance as institutions — came at a crucial time, when social norms began to fray. Millions listened. Marriages were saved. Men learned how to be great dads. Mothers received crucial and practical wisdom.

Imagine if our policymakers, rather than snickering and mocking in the elite halls of power, had heeded the warnings of this celebrated child psychologist and resisted the false promises of the sexual revolution. They hated Dobson because he had the courage to bring his concerns to the public square and urge his followers to vote for leaders who would enact policies to encourage stable homes and, thus, a strengthened nation.

As America approaches her 250th birthday, many are talking about renewing our key institutions of democracy, a worthy cause. Perhaps we might heed the prophetic wisdom of the soft-spoken James Dobson. Yes, maybe it’s time America began to . . . focus on the family.