Next to the Bruce Jenner transition story, the other big celebrity news item is the revelation that Josh Duggar, the reality television star has admitted to molestingchildren. He was revealed as having sexually abused five girls including his own sisters. He describes it has having “improperly touched” them. Duggar is a part of a long running TCL reality show “19 Kids and Counting”. The show has been cancelled by the network, but no word yet if it might be brought back.

The Duggar family has come forward after it was made public and apologized for the incident. Now at the age of 27 he’s come forward that at the age of 14 he “improperly touched” several of their daughters. Four of the victims were younger sisters including Jill and Jessa, as well as a fifth victim who is said to be a “family friend”. Duggar had, according to reports, gone to the police and confessed his crimes to an interviewer. No charges were ever laid. Instead he was sent to non-professional “faith based” counselling. In other words nothing was actually done about the crime.

Josh Duggar and the rest of the Duggar family have been held up as a monolithic role model of the Christian right. They have obediently followed right wing Christian ideas without question and staunchly supported the Republican Party. They have been the darlings of the Christian right who have professed a holier-than-thou attitude. Now they have been knocked down a peg with this scandal.

Whenever a glorified Christian right superstar is caught up in a scandal the right wing immediate swings into action to protect their champion. We see this quite often. Some “good Christian” does something horrible and contrary to Christian values, they just get “closer to God” so all of their crimes are forgiven and quietly ignored. Anyone who brings up their misdeeds is attacked and accused of being a trouble maker.

In this case it is no different. Already the stars of the political Christian right have come out in defense of the admitted child molester trying to deflect criticism. The Duggar family claims that the incident should not have been made public and instead have been kept private. They claim that the publicization is wrong because it has harmed their daughters by embarrassing them. The parents admit they didn’t immediate go to the police with the child molestation confession because they wanted to protect their son and their daughters. Such a notion is ludicrous. They have gone into the media and made their daughters out to be bigger victims from the exposure of the incident, as opposed to the incident itself.

By hiding the truth you do no service to the victims or Duggar’s possible future victims. The goal here was clear: to hide the fact this crime had been committed. No justice was done, no penality was given to Duggar for his actions. Instead he was sent to “Christian counselling” where he professed his love for Jesus and walked away scot-free. The incident was recorded into his juvenile record and sealed away until a Freedom of information Act request was filed to obtain the record. The family is now threatening to sue. Their motivations here are apparent: They are angry that the crime they covered up was exposed and it cost them their show.

Michelle Duggar, the mother has claimed her family is the victim of a witch hunt against the Baptist religion. She said, “This is more about… there’s an agenda and there’s people that are twisting (the allegations) to hurt and slander.” A real crime was committed here by her son. Michelle is attempting to deflect critics against her and her husband for covering it up. By claiming they’re the victims via religious persecution, no one can criticize them for their horrible actions.

The rest of the Christian right came to his defense as well. Mike Huckabee made a disgusting defense of Josh Duggar and his family:

“Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.’ He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”

Yes, there is purpose served by “discrediting” Josh Duggar. The public needs to know what he has done. When someone is a threat to children it needs to be known. It’s entirely along the conservative line to exposed child predators to the public. But when it happens in their own camp they try to cover it up, or politicize the perpetrator into victimhood. The family is being criticized for trying to cover these crimes up. Yes it is right to call them out on it.

Sara Palin went out into the media to accuse liberals of hypocrisy. She pointed to a confession made by Lena Dunham in her book Not That Kind of Girl where she gave candy to her 1-year-old sister in exchange for kisses and a look at her vagina. She made it very clear that “leftists” were letting her get away with a crime:

“I’m not an apologist for any sexual predator, but I’m sickened that the media gives their chosen ones a pass for any behavior as long as they share their leftwing politics. Case in point, they suggest Lena Dunham’s sexual assault on her sibling is cute, and she’s rewarded for it with fame and fortune. Meanwhile, they crucify another, along with an entire family.”

The comparison is simply ridiculous. Dunham was seven years old when she did what she did. It was little different than the usual “children playing doctor” as pointed out by Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post. She was an innocent child who didn’t even understand what she was doing. Duggar by comparison was a sexually mature teenager who knew what he was doing was wrong. All Palin has done is try to deflect criticism from a Christian right star and claim persecution.

I am not surprised by this at all. Due to the revelations of his child molesting Josh Duggar also was forced to resign from the influential GOP ally, the Family Research Council in Washington, where he facilitated the role of lobbyist for Christian causes. His job was to attack same-sex marriage and abortion rights. This has been an embarrassment for the GOP, and has harmed their lobbying efforts.

This is what it has all been about. The Republican Party has been embarrassed by yet another scandal that contradicts their holier-than-thou image that they are the true moral guides of the United States of America. Their image has been tarnish by their very own deceptive nature. Rather than acknowledge that they’ve made a mistake by letting Josh Duggar in, they’ve made themselves out to be the victims and attempt to portray those calling them out on it as hypocrites. In their entire drive to save face they’ve lost sight of the fact these girls have been victims of a child predator.

The GOP-Christian values people have taken a crime against children and have politicized it into them being the victims of “hypocritical” liberal attacks. Disgusting.

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Sources:

Sarah Palin Calls Lena Dunham A ‘Pedophile,’ Blasts Media Over Duggars, Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/04/sarah-palin-lena-dunham_n_7515910.html Josh Duggar: Mike Huckabee Defends the ’19 Kids and Counting’ Star, ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/josh-duggar-mike-huckabee-defends-19-kids-counting/story?id=31236959 Duggars open up on family sex scandal, King5 http://www.king5.com/story/life/tv/2015/06/03/duggars-open-up-on-family-sex-scandal/28426535/ Sara Palin note, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/posts/10153385009473588