Everyone has seen the recent news that broke that Josh Duggar, one of the famous Duggars of the scary “Quiverfull” Evangelical Christian movement/cult and stars of the 19 and Counting reality TV show on The Learning Channel, had molested his sisters when he was 14 and the youngest was five.
The entire sordid story, including the police report, can be found here in In Touch magazine. With the police report you have to scan though some pages of personal details of everyone involved in the case until you get to the accounts by the victims and witnesses. Another interesting factoid mentioned in the article, the police officer and friend of the family that came to the Duggars house and gave Josh a “stern talking to” (rather than arresting him) was later himself arrested, convicted and is serving 50 odd-years for kiddie porn.
Things that make you go “Hrrmmm.”
Now that fact that the Duggars allowed this to happen to their girls is appalling. And I note no one is talking about if they got the treatment/counseling they needed. (Though sadly, when they belong to a movement that treats women as brood sows subservient to their fathers, brothers and husbands, is it really that surprising?) That had the nerve to very publicly and hypocritically say and display their stand for “Christian Family Values” to their profit is more appalling.
But what has been completely disgusting is the loud and large reaction from the right-wing conservative Evangelical Christian community who has demanded that the reality TV shows stars be “left alone.” “God has forgiven his sins, it is not for you to judge,” “He only 14, a child himself, he didn’t know any better,” “We’ve all made mistakes,” “It sounds like they were just ‘playing doctor’,” etc. etc. etc., often each weirder and more desperate than the next. They have excused, rationalized and gotten very angry with people who have shown disgust over Josh and the family’s behavior.
So I guess molesting little girls are “Conservative/Fundamentalist Christian Family Values.”
The capper of hypocrisy came yesterday in this blog post by Michael Seewald.
It is the same collection of rationalizations and “God has forgiven him” and “it is not up to us to judge” we’ve been reading and hearing over the last couple days, with this sickening addition:
“It is a mercy of God that he restrains the evil of mankind otherwise we would have destroyed ourselves long ago. Many times it is simply lack of opportunity or fear of consequences that keep us from falling into grievous sin even though our fallen hearts would love to indulge the flesh.”
I put a response in the comments on his blog, but is sincerely doubt he will allow it to be published. Just too embarrassing to have some bare facts laid out. So here is my response to him and all those defending the Duggars with their claims of “Christian Grace.”
As a non-Christian, I have never had the urge to sexually molest a five year old. Most Christians I have known would never have the urge to do so. Most human beings do not have the urge to do so.
Which makes me wonder what is wrong with your branch of Christianity that you think this is a normal human urge?
Most 14 year old boys are stealing their Dad’s Playboy magazines to look at *women.* They are not looking at small children sexually. That is highly abnormal behavior, no matter what NAAMBLA or you have to say about it.
Josh Duggar was was 14 when this started. He was old enough to know he should not be touching his five and seven your old sisters’ genitals in their sleep or otherwise. If he did not know this was wrong, then there is something *very* wrong in the Duggar Household.
If you think this is some sort of normal human urge only stopped by your God, then you have issues that need to be addressed by a professional psychiatrist, as Josh Duggar’s family should have done with him and his victims 12 years ago rather than sending him off to help a family friend build houses for a couple months and then get a “stern talking to” by a police officer who was later arrested for kiddie porn.
BTW – You say you have the right to judge homosexuals based on God’s writing in Leviticus (and let’s be honest, you do judge them), well guess what Christ himself had to say about hurting children:
Matthew 18:6 – But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Luke 17:2 – It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
So Christ himself thought people who hurt children deserved to die.
So if you claim the Bible as your right to judge one group, others can claim the Bible, Christs’ own Word, to judge a hypocritical pedophile.
Kip's Kardo 