The Duggars Respond to Reports That Josh Duggar Was Accused of Child Molestation

[masondoggy]

:bigyikes::dts:

There’s another similar lengthy quote on the next page.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

Masondoggy, it does seem this “Alice” personally witnessed Josh Duggar confess his sins and beg forgiveness from his church members, BUT I interpreted her statements as, he at one point confessed in church to watching porn and stated he was repentant, then later on confessed in church to molesting his sisters, and then again stated he was repentant. Not that he kept confessing to molesting his sisters again and again. I also do not agree with her linking his porn use to his later acts. A whole lot of 14 year old boys experiment with porn, the vast majority do NOT molest their 5 year old sisters while reading a bedtime story.

I also read the ThinkProgress.Org article linked by Darryl Revok, as well as more pages from the Free Jinger forums, and these are my take on this:

To the Josh defenders who are so outraged at the discussion on CAF, I’d recommend you take some kind of anxiety medication (or just a stiff drink) before venturing onto those links. Because most of us have been much more charitable the Duggar family than much of the secular media have.

And while I and many others have been concerned that some are quick to defend Josh and minimize the harm to the victims, I have to acknowledge that SOME of the critics don’t care that much about the victims either.

The "9 Times Josh Duggar Lectured People on Family Values" article on ThinkProgress.Org, mentions not a single world about his victims. It’s all about what a hypocrite Josh Duggar is, and while SOME of the quotes really do make me cringe to read, others are essentially no different than what I’ve read on CAF regarding same-sex marriage.

I do however confess two particular quotes from Josh made me want to shake him and ask “Dude, WHAT were you thinking?”

1. When Josh Duggar argued that an LGBT nondiscrimination measure in Arkansas jeopardized the safety of children:
   “Enacting additional laws that are trying to protect one group of people over another is not really the solution and in fact it has the inverse effect on others…We have to make sure we’re standing up to protect the rights of privacy and protecting the well-being of women and children in our cities.”

Well at least he didn’t speak about protecting women and children in the suburbs and country, that somewhat keeps him from being a complete hypocrite.

And this:

. When Josh Duggar appeared at a charity event and talked about how doing evil things to children is the worst:
“In the absence of doing good, Duggar said, “evil comes in to fill the void,” adding, evil done to children is “one of its worst forms.” CCHO is a place they can go and “break that chain (of evil).””

Now I guess his defenders can argue that he said this because he was sorry he harmed children himself, but…assuming most of you know how the Scarlet Letter ends, he’s really starting to remind me of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Who is NOT meant to be anything close to a hero in that story.

On the other hand, Josh defenders, you should probably be happy that Josh didn’t target girls who grew up to be feminist gay-rights activists, and hence would have been much more sympathetic victims than his sisters, most of whom share his traditional values. I think he’d have been even more thoroughly roasted than he has been already if that was the case.

The Free Jinger site also makes it quite obvious that many of those posters are basking in this story NOT because they actually care about Jinger and her sisters, but because they’re happy to have the Duggars as a group, brought low in the public eye and exposed as phonies. One poster essentially stated Michelle deserved to have this come out because she made robo-calls that were opposing the LGBT agenda.

The feeling I get is that some people think “hating” homosexuals is the ultimate sin, even worse than molesting children or covering up for molesters. For such people, obviously the victims, Josh’s sisters, don’t really matter because they also “hate” homosexuals. But this is still great fodder to use to bring down a bunch of people who actually put a human face on conservative religious values.

Anyway, I don’t agree with EITHER side politicizing this to gain points. I don’t care if the Duggars were conservative, liberal, moderate, whatever. They really messed up and I really hope the victims truly have moved on because if they haven’t, I’m sure they must be going though hell right now.

ETA: I also had the displeasure of reading an article on Jezebel.com in which the author defended Lena Durham while lambasting Josh Duggar. Her claim was that Durham only acted inappropriately once when she was only 7 years old, which was totally different from what Josh did when he was 14. Only to have people correct the record and point out that Dunham continued to act very sexually inappropriately with her sister for years, up to when she was at least 17, actually OLDER than Josh.

But it seems she thinks that what Josh did was worse because it took place in the context of patriarchy. Similar to how many will claim “only white people can be racist because only white people have institutional power”, seems she thinks “only men can commit sexual abuse and assault because only men have institutional power”.

This is why I do agree with Hoosier Daddy that there are pitfalls in blaming the Duggars’ beliefs for what happened.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I feel like I’m bordering on breaching forum etiquette by replying to myself, but I just wanted to point out two other tidbits that suggest the “family has already moved on” narrative is, to put it charitably, naive:

Daily Mail: Jill Duggar Wedding Mystery Solved

The article doesn’t really break much new ground, but it DOES point out that neither Jill or Jessa chose Josh to actually be in their wedding party.

Jill, 24, handpicked her eight bridesmaids, which included her sister-in-law Anna, 25, and even her only niece Mackynzie, 5, as a flower girl. Derick, 26, used three Duggar boys as groomsmen, John-David, 25, Joseph, 20, and Jackson, 11.
Derick even had little Michael, 3, (Josh and Anna’s eldest son) serve as ring bearer.

But Josh was not front and center at the nuptials.

A source close to the family who attended the wedding tells Daily Mail Online: ‘We all thought it was odd that basically everyone of Josh’s family served in some position but he was left out. But no one made a big deal about it. Now it’s making more sense why they wouldn’t want him up there, standing at the altar next to them.’

Things got even more curious when Jessa Duggar married Ben Seewald on November 1, at the First Baptist Church in Bentonville, Ar.

Jessa, 22, and Ben, 20, had ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen in their wedding party, and not a single member of Josh’s immediate family was included.
Jessa had sisters Jinger, 21, (as maid of honor) Jana, 25, Jill, and Joy, 17, in her party, with little Jordyn, 6, as flower girl, while Ben invited Joseph, and Josiah, 18, to stand up for him.

There were other signs that something was amiss between the siblings. When the ‘All About Jill’ episode aired (Season 14, episode 13) in October 2014, it featured older brother Josh reminding viewers that ‘perfect’ Jill was basically the family snitch or ‘tattle tale,’ running to their parents Jim Bob, 49, and Michelle 47, with every thing they did.

Very interesting. Especially if you go the SaveJinger.com discussion linked by masondoggy, and read the comments of “Alice” that it was the “second daughter” who first blew the whistle on Josh.

There’s also a tidbit from TodayChristian.netthat shortly before the story broke, Anna Duggar posted a graphic to her Instagram with the quote:

The three most liberating words in the English language are these: “I forgive you”. - Lon Solomon

Even more interestingly, Josh Duggar posted the following quote to his Instagram account:

Do right and risk the consequences. - Sam Houston

Which seems to be in keeping with the many Duggar defenders who are trying to create a narrative that “oooh those evil liberals just want to tear the Duggars down because they did the right thing and spoke up for the Truth”.

But it’s one thing for outsiders to formulate this defense, and yet another for the actual guilty party to do so, assuming Josh was referring to the about-to-break scandal. NO Josh this isn’t a case of “Do right and risk the consequences”. It was a case of doing WRONG and risking the consequences. It was wrong to go into public life hiding this and risking the consequences not just to you, but to your family, as well as your political causes.

Tell me, is it really so outrageous that I don’t 100% believe that this guy is truly repentant here?

 

[gracepoole]

I feel like I’m bordering on breaching forum etiquette by replying to myself, but I just wanted to point out two other tidbits that suggest the “family has already moved on” narrative is, to put it charitably, naive:

Daily Mail: Jill Duggar Wedding Mystery Solved

The article doesn’t really break much new ground, but it DOES point out that neither Jill or Jessa chose Josh to actually be in their wedding party.

I can’t offer anything about Jill’s wedding but he almost didn’t make it to Jessa’s – he flew in at the last minute, seemingly because he couldn’t get away from work commitments. Jessa’s also the one who claimed she’d turn to her brother for advice on kissing before she was married eek. Maybe the girls view him differently?

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I can’t offer anything about Jill’s wedding but he almost didn’t make it to Jessa’s – he flew in at the last minute, seemingly because he couldn’t get away from work commitments. Jessa’s also the one who claimed she’d turn to her brother for advice on kissing before she was married eek. Maybe the girls view him differently?

Well, without hearing from Jill or Jessa themselves, the article is essentially speculation. The whole thing may be a coincidence, and certainly it’s possible that since Josh has been away from home so long it was just logistically easier to leave him out and have the younger siblings be more involved. Also, technically the groomsmen are chosen by the grooms, and maybe Derek and Ben wouldn’t have included Josh anyway, just because they didn’t know him well.

I just wanted to point out there is at least SOME evidence that the “family has moved on and we should follow their lead” narrative is inaccurate.