By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator
Homeschool celebrities.
They run our lobbying organizations, write our books, and garner all our blog views. Our parents thought they were God’s messengers and we thought we should keep our thoughts to ourselves. Now that we’re grown, our perspectives have changed a bit. So we think it’s worthwhile to look at 11 current and former homeschool celebrities — and explain them using gifs.
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1. Michael and Debi Pearl
The Pearls have a unique approach to communicating the love of Jesus to children. It goes something like this:
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2. Doug Phillips
Last year Doug Phillips realized his most Hazardous Journey wasn’t a vacation. It was the public backlash against revelations that he had an extramarital relationship with a woman that involved — well, we weren’t sure exactly what it involved.
When Phillips first admitted infidelity, he spun it as just some species of “emotional fornication” or something:
But then it came out that, no, the relationship wasn’t just “inappropriately romantic and affectionate,” as he originally stated. The “relationship” was Doug Phillips repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman. As far as his original statement went, Phillips was suddenly like:
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3. Bill Gothard
Bill Gothard, like Doug Phillips, has discovered that sexually abusing young people doesn’t make you popular. However, unlike Phillips, Gothard faces over 30 individuals accusing him of abuse. At this point his attempts to explain his situation are sounding like this:
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4. James and Stacy McDonald
As the media and homeschoolers are circling the wagons around Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips, their former fans with crushes on Patriarchy are doing everything possible to now hide that fact. People like James and Stacy McDonald are pulling previously written posts and urging Patriarchy advocates to change the words they use. The McDonalds’ response here boils down to:
“No Patriarchy to see here. Move along!”
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5. Doug Wilson
Then of course there’s Doug Wilson. When he’s not too busy with obsessing over the latest blog post by Rachel Held Evans, Wilson is fighting the biggest threat Western Civilization has ever faced: women playing unladylike basketball.
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6. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have a TV show. The plot of that TV show can be described by staring at this gif for approximately 19 seconds… and counting…
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7. Ken Ham
No homeschool celebrity list would be complete without a shout-out to Ken Ham. If you find it somewhat difficult to believe Adam and Eve enjoyed candlelight dinners on the backs of dinosaurs while trying to avoid talking snakes, well, Ken Ham has one message for you:
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8. Kevin Swanson
Kevin Swanson is like the Drunk Uncle of Christian homeschooling. From defending child marriage, comparing child abuse to “dead little bunnies,” warning people Frozen is Satan’s attempt to indoctrinate children into “the lifestyle of sodomy,” to his actual statement that “There’s a contrast between the feces-eaters and the church,” sometimes we wonder if he rocks himself to sleep at night screaming,
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9. Mary Pride
Mary Pride found her way home in 1985. It involved outbreeding non-Christians and calling children “the new n*****s.” When it comes to people and organizations working tirelessly to protect children from abuse, Pride is all,
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10. Michael Farris
In the midst of all the drama in the homeschooling world, Michael Farris stands in the foreground leading the charge against Obama, Common Core, and the not-Nazi Germans who hate homeschooling as much as he loves freedom. And Michael Farris loves his freedom:
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11. Matt Walsh
Ah yes. Finally, there’s Matt Walsh:
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
Re #9: Is that the Grinch or a White Walker?
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#9 is definitely The Grinch.
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Re #8: Gene Scott made a much better Crazy Uncle.
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I enjoyed this immensely.
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I wish this was a gif, but here’s one about CJ Mahaney: http://thumbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/funny-Robert-Downey-humility-smiling1.jpg
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LOL Perfect!
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I just spat apple juice all over my laptop screen. Well played, well played.
“Oh I’m so humble! Listen to all these people tell you how aweso– err, humble I am!”
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Holy crap these people are insane. I don’t even understand the whole feces-eating thing. It was said in English but I could gather no literal meaning from it. And how is Frozen turning people gay? Are we sure this Kevin Swanson dude doesn’t have schizophrenia? Because it sure seems like it.
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Pretty sure Swanson meant “shit-eaters,” but because that’s *gasp!* swearing, he had to modify it.
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HUG – I agree that Gene Scott would make a great Crazy Uncle, but this is spot on about Kevin Swanson.
Seriously, I was eating my lunch while reading that and almost choked on my chip when I read #8!
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Someone with more cultural literacy than I possess: would you please tell which movies/shows each GIF is from? All I know is that #2a is Star Trek (even I recognize the pointy-ears guy!), #4 is a pair of costumes from Star Wars (but what is the context of the costumes? some convention? is it an actual scene from a movie?), & #9 is the Grinch.
The GIF’s match what I know of each “celebrity,” but I feel like I’m missing a lot of the cultural relevancy here by not recognizing the context of the GIF’s. 😦
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#1 is from Saved!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved!
#2a is from Star Trek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)
#2b is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_(2005_film)
#3 is Jennifer Lawrence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence) at an awards show
#4 is from the first Star Wars movie, right after Obi Won says, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
#5… I honestly have no idea.
#6 is Darren Criss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Criss) who is on the TV show Glee.
#7 is, like #1, from the movie Saved!
#8 is Will Ferrell playing Mugatu in the movie Zoolander: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoolander
#9 is from the Grinch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss'_How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas_(film)
#10 is Mel Gibson playing William Wallace in the movie Braveheart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braveheart
#11 is Steve Carell playing Brick Tamland in the movie Anchorman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorman:_The_Legend_of_Ron_Burgundy
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Is #5 from “A League of Their Own” maybe?
*boyfriend watches sports movies
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#10 bugs me. And I think it is because M. Farris would agree with it.
It’s one thing to talk about how Mikey would LIKE for us to see him. But, what of the man behind the ardently-desired persona?
I’ve pondered this, and just kept coming back to Michael Scott from “The Office”.
Let us examine a few choice, out-of-context quotes:
Young Michael on the question of what he wants to be when he grows up:
“I want to be married and have a hundred kids so I can have a hundred friends, and no one can say no to being my friend. ”
Michael the persecuted:
“I am a victim of a hate crime. Stanley knows what I’m talkin’ about.
Stanley: “That’s not what a hate crime is.”
Michael: “Well I hated it! A lot!”
Michael on Christmas freedoms:
“If this were Russia, yeah sure, everyone would go to one Santa, and there would be a line around the block, and once you sat on her lap and she would ask you what you wanted and you would probably say freedom, at which point the KGB would arrest you and send you to Siberia. It’s a good thing Russia doesn’t exist anymore.”
Michael on his bad-boy self:
“I am so used to fighting Corporate that I forget that I am Corporate. Upper Management.”
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I thought that as well when I first saw it. Farris might even like this article because he sees Braveheart as a good movie (as do most republicans that I know [except for the sex scene]) AND all his contemporaries that he now distances himself from are somewhat ridiculous.
Dont make him LIKE this article. Make him look like everyone else.
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haha this is awesome.
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Who the hell are these people anyway?
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Ok the last was the best. Love Steve Carrell.
The homeschooling world – and the ex homescholing world – is a universe of it’s own. My colleague was truly bemused the other day when she found me reading ‘Homeschoolers Anonymous.’ she couldn’t understand what it was all about.
It’s like we’re a group of people who were shipwrecked together, and have in jokes and stories that only we can understand.
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LOL!!! However, I do share in the right wing homeschoolers’ loathing of Common Core, albeit for different reasons. Actually, I expect some of these homeschooling gurus secretly *like* Common Core because it is driving many, many families out of the public schools, making them vulnerable targets for their particular brand of snake oil salesmanship.
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This made my night. 🙂
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Oh my god, this is everything.
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Never heard of any of them. Keeping my kids in public school…
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The last two are particularly perfect 😀
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