2 Predators and Counting

Admin V talks about another Republican horror story

Admin V here. It is never the drag queens or the transgender individuals in the bathrooms. Seems like it is always the Republicans and we have yet another example.

I was an adult when the Duggar show came out. I was also past the worst of my fundie-ness and thought what a weird family. Why so many kids? If you want me to do a deep dive on the quiverfull moment, I can. For those of you who aren’t in the know, it is based in white supremacist nonsense. But as an adult of childbearing age when this came out, I wondered why Michelle Duggar was treating her uterus like a clown car.

I’m going to give a brief summary for those of you who had the good fortune to know about none of this. The Duggars are a large family that had a show on TLC called 19 kids and counting. It started with a smaller number, but kept growing. They were religious fundamentalists associated with the IBLP. They homeschooled, made their daughters wear dresses, and stuck to “traditional” gender roles. They became famous when their father Jim Bob ran for Senate. A parenting magazine did a spread on them and then they got a TLC Special. It was so popular that they gave them a reality show.

What no one knew at the time is that the oldest child, Josh, had been sent away from home for abusing his younger sisters. Jill, the second daughter, famously punched him in the face and told her parents what was happening. She’s estranged from her family now because they resent her for telling the truth and for forcing them to pay her for her work. They were scheduled to do an appearance on Oprah, but someone sent an anonymous letter to her, and Oprah canceled their appearance and reported it to the Sheriff in their area who promptly hushed it up because Jim Bob was his friend and he, also, would also later get sent to jail for CSA.

Josh goes to work for Focus on the Family (James Dobson’s outfit) as a Washington lobbyist. He is married with his own little batch of children. He gets caught in the Ashley Madison cheating scandal and is famously accused of being rough with an adult film star that he went on a date with. This ended his focus on the family. InTouch magazine found out about his abuse of his sister and the Duggars were in danger of losing the show. Jim Bob worked it out that Josh wouldn’t appear anymore and they would focus on his four oldest daughters. Janna, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger were all moving into adulthood and getting married and shit so they were interesting. Jim Bob didn’t pay them, but he did keep paying for Josh’s mistakes. He hooked Josh up with a used car lot and a place to live for him and his large brood of children.

Then the used car lot was raided and Josh was arrested for CSA materials found on his phone and computer. He was tried, found guilty, and is now rotting in a federal prison in Texas for at least 12 years. Jill wrote a great book and participated in the Shiny Happy People documentary about the IBLP. And we thought that would be it.

Until earlier this week, we found out that Joseph Duggar, who is also married with a bunch of kids, was arrested for CSA in his home in Arkansas. Turns out that on a family vacation in 2020 around the time of Josh’s trial, Joseph abused a 9 year old girl. She recently told her father. He confronted Joseph and Joseph confessed to him and to a police officer. He was arrested in Arkansas but he’ll be tried in Florida where the crime happened. The father went right to the police and didn’t try to hide it like so many in their community. So maybe we’re seeing some progress in understanding the weight of this. It was bad. If he pleads guilty, he’ll be in jail for a long time. Don’t look it up if this is hard for you.

This seems to be super common in patriarchal religions. Back in February, the brother of an LDS Apostle was arrested for a similar type thing. Turns out the church had covered up him doing it to others back in the 90s,, but again a father found out and went right to the police.

I’m glad that the girls in these incidents are being believed. I’m glad these fathers are holding these men accountable and not saying “You can pray it away and ask for forgiveness.” This is a good change, but I have to wonder why it happens so often in this kind of religious community. My theory is that girls and boys are taught that girls don’t really matter from the cradle so if you hurt a girl, you’re not really hurting a person. My other theory is that it is easy for a certain kind of man to play the role and if he gets caught, he’ll confess to the sin of lust and he’ll beg for forgiveness and then, he will perform repentance. And because Christianity loves a redemption story, the perpetrator gets forgiven and celebrated and the victims get forgotten. Because again, women and girls aren’t really people that matter.

And of course they love a good family values religion that gives them power and control over their own little cult of people. And Republicans are the family values party that puts laws in place that benefit them and help them get away with crimes.

So once again, it isn’t a trans person or a drag queen. It is a white, straight, Christian, Republican man abusing girl children just like the president.

I fucking hate it here.