Duggar Family Ally Sued for Sexual Abuse by Numerous Women

It seems that one never knows what delicious new bomb will go off and pt the hypocrisy of the Christofascists and "family values" crowd on open display.  Regular readers are likely familiar with the implosion of the Duggar family that made a nice living by peddling the godly Christian shtick and the parents' ability to bread like rabbits until it came out that son Josh had not only sexually abused his underage sisters and utilized the services of prostitutes.  Now,  Bill Gothard, a Duggar family ally and for years a major player in the Christofascist home schooling universe has been sued by a group of women who allege that Gothard sexually abused them.  Previously, Gothard had resigned from his "ministry" after 30 women alleged that he was a sexual predator.   Secularists and Democrats are not immune for sexual improprieties, but it seems that for every one of them that runs into trouble there are at least nine of the godly folk.  The Washington Post looks at this new lawsuit and Gothard's questionable past.  Here are highlights:

Ten women on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Bill Gothard, who for decades was a major force in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, charging him and leaders in his ministry with sexual abuse, harassment and cover-up.

Gothard, who urged Christians to shun things like short skirts and rock music, is accused of raping a woman. The same woman says she was raped by one of the ministry’s “biblical counselors.”

The lawsuit is part of a battle between dozens of women and the Institute in Basic Life Principles, which was until recently an influential homeschooling ministry, and its charismatic leader Gothard, who urged Christians to focus on their “biblical character” and have large families.
Gothard, 81, resigned from the ministry in 2014 after more than 30 women had alleged that he had molested and sexually harassed women he worked with, including some who were minors.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Gothard said he has not seen the lawsuit and denied allegations that he had raped one woman.

A smaller group of the same women filed a lawsuit in October against IBLP. In Wednesday’s amended lawsuit, more women have joined the lawsuit, and the lawyers added Gothard to the complaint as a named defendant.  

Gothard’s ministry was once a popular gathering spot for thousands of conservative Christian families, including the Duggar family from TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute conferences, where families would learn from Gothard’s teaching, were popular among homeschooling families. He has also rubbed shoulders with Republican luminaries like former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

IBLP was in the headlines last year after In Touch magazine reported that Josh Duggar, the eldest son of reality TV stars, had been sent to an IBLP training center as a teenager after he admitted he had sexually abused four of his younger sisters and a family friend.

Read the entire piece.  The take away is that Gothard - like so many of the professional Christian crowd - is not only a parasite, but also seemingly a world class liar and hypocrite.  It is little wonder that the younger generations are walking away from organized religion and the poison it peddles. 

Duggars Slam Transgendered and Show Hypocrisy of "Godly Christians"

I've never watched the Duggar freak show known as "19 Kids and Counting."  The good news is that it looks increasingly that no one else will be able to watch it again.  While TLC has yet to flat out cancel the freak show, the Duggar attempt via a softball Fox News interview to do damage control seems to have failed.  Reactions have been negative and rather confess and apologize, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar down played their son's deviancy, made excuses, attacked society and acted as if they were the victims and then slammed transgender individuals as pedophiles for extra measure.  These people are repulsive and I suspect their children need an intervention and de-programing from the batshitery they have been forced to endure.  A piece at MSN News looks at the overall reaction to the lies and excuse making.  Here are excerpts:

Based on the early response to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's interview with Fox News, the future of their TLC reality series "19 Kids and Counting" looks bleak.

The Duggars sat down Wednesday with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly to discuss the recent revelations that their oldest son Josh had inappropriately touched five underage girls when he was a teenager. Four of them were his sisters, including one when she was 5 years old.

On NBC's "Today," coanchor Matt Lauer noted that people typically agree to sit for a TV interview in order to put controversial issues to rest. But in this case, he said, the interview only raised more questions, such as why the Duggars waited for more than a year to report Josh's actions to authorities despite his having confessed to his actions three times.

In David Wright's report on ABC's "Good Morning America," he said, "As a father of three little girls this was a brutal hour to watch."

CNN's Anderson Cooper said: "If you have 19 kids, you can't be a good parent."

But what really may doom the Duggars' TV future is the response on social media - something that advertisers pay a lot of attention to these days, according to Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at the ad-buying firm Horizon Media.

The Duggars took a pounding on Twitter during and after the interview, especially for suggesting that they were victims of media bias and tabloid journalism. . . . the public reaction to the Duggars will make it "an impossible task" to get advertisers to support the program if it ever returned. A number of major companies have already said they will not run their spots in "19 Kids and Counting," which was pulled from the TLC schedule on May 22.

The Duggars ARE the true face of today's far right Christofascists.  The reality is that far right Christians like the Duggars are NOT nice and decent people.  It's a reality that the larger public needs to grasp sooner rather than later.  Rather than having a television show, the Duggars need to be reviled for the nasty freaks, hypocrites and bigots that they are in fact.   Think Progress looks at Michelle Duggars efforts to again equate being transgendered as the equivalent of being a pedophile as if the attacks would somehow change the subject.  Here are excerpts:

During Wednesday night’s interview with Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar about their son Josh’s history of molesting his younger sisters, Fox News’ Megyn Kelley pressed the conservative couple to justify their advocacy against LGBT equality. Specifically, she asked Michelle about her robocalls against Fayetteville’s LGBT ordinance, in which she smeared transgender people as a threat to the safety of women and children. “How could you unfairly… compare transgender people to child molesters, suggest they are child molesters, knowing what you know about Josh?”

Michelle doubled down on her comments, erasing the very experience of transgender people’s identities by saying, “I think that protecting young girls and not allowing young men and men in general to go into a girls’ locker room is just common sense.”

Kelley insisted, “But this is different because you injected child molestation into it.” Jim Bob interrupted to clarify that Michelle said “pedophile,” which requires the perpetrator to be of a certain age, but Josh was younger — “a child preying on a child,” not a pedophile — so it’s not a fair comparison. Michelle then claimed that they were the ones being victimized by these charges of hypocrisy, explaining, “This is more about — there’s an agenda, and there’s people that are purposing to try to bring things out and twisting them to hurt and slander.”

What Michelle actually said last summer was that Fayetteville’s nondiscrimination order was that men — “yes, I said men!” — would be allowed into “women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas, and other areas that are designated for females only.” She referred to “males with past child predator convictions” — not “pedophiles” — who might “claim they are female” to enter women’s spaces.

Kelley missed an opportunity to call out another example of hypocrisy from the Duggars’ past public statements. In 2002, when Jim Bob was running for U.S. Senate, he actually argued that rape and incest “represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.”

In my view, Jim Bob and Michelle are human refuse.  One has to wonder why their minor children have not been removed by child protective services.  Oh, I forgot!  They live in Arkansas.

Fox News Ignores Growing Duggar Scandal

Proving yet again that Fox News is little more than a right wing propaganda machine, the "news" channel is ignoring the Duggar scandal which seems to be getting worse by the hour as more individual challenge the storyline put out by the freak show family and more questions arise about the investigation of Josh Duggars admitted five episodes of molesting under aged girls, some of whom were his sisters.  Media Matters looks at Fox News' apparent effort to keep its brainwashed viewers from the facts about this less than normal or decent family.  Here are highlights:

Fox News largely ignored the controversy surrounding Josh Duggar following his recent admission that, as a teenager, he molested young girls, including several of his sisters. The revelations are particularly stunning given that, under the guise of protecting children, the Duggar family has played an active role in the fight against LGBT equality.

On May 21, In Touch magazine revealed that in 2006, Jim Bob Duggar - patriarch of TLC's hit show 19 Kids and Counting - had waited more than a year before telling police that his son, Josh, had confessed to molesting several female minors, including his sisters, when he was a teenager. TLC has since pulled episodes of 19 Kids from its schedule.

The revelations drew widespread criticism in the media, with many outlets pointing out the Duggar family's reputation as a torch-bearer for conservative values and strong involvement in Republican politics and anti-LGBT activism. The revelations look to many like hypocrisy from a family that's become a political powerhouse in socially conservative circles in recent years by wielding its reality show influence to stump for "family values," Republican politicians, and the repeal of legal protections for LGBT people.

But while MSNBC and CNN have reported heavily on the Duggar scandal, Fox News has largely ignored the story. According to a Media Matters analysis, Fox News spent less than two minutes covering the story between May 21 and May 25, compared to almost an hour of coverage from the other cable news networks.

The Duggar controversy has put Fox News in an awkward position. Before he resigned the day In Touch's story broke, Josh Duggar was the head of the Family Research Council's (FRC) political wing. Representatives of FRC, an anti-gay hate group that routinely links homosexuality to pedophilia and describes LGBT people as a threat to children, are a regular fixture on Fox News.

Former Fox News employee Mike Huckabee, who is running for president in 2016, has come under fire for defending the Duggar family in the wake of the controversy.

The right wing's "family values" stink to high Heaven.  And if you want to remain uninformed, then Fox News should be your news network of choice.

TLC Pulls "19 Kids and Counting" from Schedule in Wake of Moestation Admission

Back last year when there were rallies outside the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, as the Court considered the case of Bostic v. Rainey, among the anti-gay hate mongers outside the courthouse was now confessed molester Josh Duggar (pictured standing next to Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation, one of Virginia's leading hate groups and enemies of equality for minorities of all races and sexual orientation).  Duggar has admitted to multiple molestations of minors in the past and has resigned from his position with Family Research Council, another hate group, and adopted the usual Christofascist bullshit defense/faity tale that "I sinned, but God has redeemed me."   Here's the line that made me want to grab a vomit bag: 

I am so thankful for God's grace, forgiveness, and redemptive heart that allowed me to transform into a man of faith and testimony. 

Joe Jervis has details on Duggar's disingenuous resignation letter here.  How anyone with over a 70 IQ believes such crap amazes me.  But, then again, studies have shown a correlation between low educational/intelligence levels and adherence to fundamentalist Christianity.   Meanwhile, TLC seems to have finally recognized the reality that the Duggars and their family freak show are toxic and out of the sane mainstream.  As Towleroad reports, TLS has pulled "19 Kids and Counting" from its schedule - hopefully, the move will be permanent.  Here are highlights:

Wrote the network on its Facebook page:

Effective immediately, TLC has pulled all episodes of 19 Kids and Counting currently from the air. We are deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time.

Last November, a petition calling on TLC to cancel the show over the Duggars' "LGBT fear mongering" caught fire on the internet and amassed over 100,000 signatures.

The hypocrisy of the Duggars, who have been active in opposing gay rights and denigrated LGBT individuals is stunning, given that Josh Duggar and his parents knew that he was a five time molester of underage girls.  If anyone is a threat to families, it is the Duggars themselves.

"19 Kids and Counting" Son Named in Underage Sex Probe

Duggar family freak show

Once again it seems we are seeing the hypocrisy of those who seek to meddle in the lives of LGBT individuals and limit our civil rights.  The infamous Duggar family of "19 Kids and Counting" fame - or infamy depending on one's perspective - has been been in the forefront of supporting anti-gay Republican candidates such as the always foul Ken Cuccinelli and has made robo calls urging citizens to vote against gay rights initiatives.  Now it seems that rather than meddling the sex lives of others, the Duggars should have been minding things within the own family.  As In Touch is reporting, Josh Duggar named in a police report as the “alleged offender” in an underage sexual abuse probe.  Here are article highlights (Note: (i) the police officer who failed to follow up initially has been arrested himself on child pornography charges, and (ii) Josh Duggar is a lobbyist for hate group Family Research Council):

Josh Duggar of the TLC hit reality show 19 Kids and Counting was named in a police report as the “alleged offender” in an underage sexual abuse probe, In Touch magazine is reporting exclusively.

The charge being pursued while Josh was a minor was sexual assault in the fourth degree, multiple sources who have seen the police report and are familiar with the case told In Touch. According to the report, Josh was brought into the Arkansas State Police by his father, Jim Bob, who said he caught him leaving a young girl’s bedroom and “learned something inappropriate happened,” one source said.

A bizarre turn of events prevented police and prosecutors from finishing their investigation and possibly prosecuting. The state trooper who originally took the report about Josh shortly before 2005 never followed up. That state trooper was later convicted on child pornography charges and is serving a 56-year prison sentence. . . . . the three-year statute of limitations had passed and it would not have been possible to pursue prosecution of Josh if the allegations warranted, so the investigation was discontinued. “A technicality prevented any further action,” a source familiar with the case told In Touch. “That’s been the biggest regret in all of this.” (The statute of limitations has since been lengthened.)

Rumors about Josh have swirled for years, but In Touch’s investigation has uncovered the secret he has been hiding. “I saw and read the report and it clearly stated that Jim Bob brought his son Josh into the Arkansas State Police and spoke to a state trooper about Josh’s involvement in alleged inappropriate touching with a minor,” one source told In Touch.

The first report was filed shortly before 2005. Josh and his wife, Anna, have three children and live in Washington, D.C., where he is a lobbyist for the Family Research Council.

Less popping out babies like rabbits and more parenting time focused on the gaggle of children these freaks have produced seeming would have been in order.

Duggar Family Freak Show to Campaign for Cuccinelli and "Bishop" Jackson

Family Freak Show - I feel sorry for these kids who obviously will have a hard time knowing what normal looks like.

If you are try to dupe people into wrongly believing that you are not a right wing Christian extremist and ideologue, then it is probably not at good idea to have the Duggar Family - a reality TV family with 19 kids - out on the campaign trail working on your behalf.  Even more so when Jim Bob Duggar has just appeared at the lunatic "Value Voters Summit" and engaged in a spittle fleck tirade comparing citizens of the United States to Germans under Nazi Germany.  Oh, and did I mention that 

Duggar’s son, Josh, is the executive director of Family Research Council Action (Family Researc Council for those who do not know is a designated hate group)?  Or that the Duggars are also campaigning for the utterly delusional "Bishop" E.W. Jackson?  Here are highlights from LGBTQ Nation:

A busload of reality television stars – all from the same family – will cruise through Virginia to support anti-gay Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. The Duggar family from the TLC series “19 Kids and Counting” is planning a three-day bus tour starting Monday. 

The Duggars will make stops in Lynchburg, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Fredericksburg and Woodbridge in support of Cuccinelli, the father of seven.

During seven years as a state senator and in the past four year as Virginia’s attorney general, Cuccinelli has endorsed Virginia’s anti-gay marriage legislation and has advocated for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

In a 2009 op-ed for the The Virginian Pilot, Cuccinelli wrote, “Homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong.”

He also opposed a state bill that allowed private companies to voluntarily provide health insurance benefits to employees’ domestic partners, warning it might “encourage this type of behavior.”

Cuccinelli also waged a failed campaign to reinstate Virginia’s “crimes against nature” sodomy law that bans oral and anal sex among all consenting adults.

The Duggar tour is sponsored by Family Research Council Action. The executive director of the conservative advocacy group is 25-year-old Josh Duggar, the oldest of the 19 Duggar children.

Duggar’s son Josh is the executive director of Family Research Council Action, - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jim-bob-duggar-compares-us-nazi-germany-during-holocaust#sthash.r0LM64rF.dpuf