Duggar Family

Shame on You, Kevin Swanson

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

HA note: The following is written by Kathi and reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on June 4, 2015 with the title “Kevin Swanson talks (or doesn’t talk) about the Duggars on his radio show.”

About Kathi: Kathi is a Bible-belt midwest transplant to the beautiful Pacific northwest. After homeschooling her kids for 10 years (she decided that high school math and science were not her strongest subjects), both kids are in public school. She is a former church goer and finds herself in that unstudied demographic of middle-aged Nones. She has a B.A. in Urban Ministry and a M.S.W. (Master of Social Work). Her goal is to work with children who have been abused or are in foster care. She loves to knit, cook and read (not in any particular order). Kathi is a contributing writer at Spiritual Sounding Board. Also by Kathi on HA: “Kevin Swanson, Child Abuse, and Dead Little Bunnies”, “A Closer Look at Karen Campbell and Lisa Cherry’s Podcast Series on Sexual Abuse Prevention”, and “Kevin Swanson on the Gen 2 Survey, Homeschooling, and Sexual Abuse of Women”.

On May 28, 2015, Kevin Swanson entered the foray of folks talking about the revelation of Josh Duggar sexually molesting several little girls when he was a teen. His radio show, “The Duggars – Why the Media Storm” starts off with the vague assertion that no matter what Christians may say about the Duggars, the world will attack because the world hates the Duggars because they don’t take birth control. Right.

“The liberals have hated the Duggars from the very beginning and they will admit that. . . .The reason they hated the Duggars was because the Duggars did not take birth control. That’s a simple explanation for why they hate the Duggars. They hate the Duggars because the world is into killing babies and they kill a lot of them.”

Instead of focusing on the issue at hand, here is what Swanson was not going to say:

  • Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.
  • Incest is worse than homosexuality. HUH?? Steve Vaughn chimes in saying, “They’re about the same.” To which he offers hearty laugh.
  • Humble, repentant sinners will go home justified rather than the proud, unrepentant homosexuals.
  • Most children sin, or that all children sin, or that all of us sin, or that some teens commit fornication, or that a lot of teens commit fornication.
  • Incest is a capital crime in some cases, and we’re not going to tell you which cases incest is a capital crime as defined by scripture.
  • The Duggars shoulda, shoulda, shoulda, shoulda, reported the problem to a different police officer, different judge, different church elders, and, and, and, and, and, and, and…
  • The Duggars can be more real now after all their sins are out there for the public to see and that’s going to make for a better reality show.
  • The whole sexual revolution with all of its millions manifestations was a really good idea.
  • American conservative Christianity is in really solid shape. (Really, this is such a long, drawn out rabbit trail that makes absolutely no sense.)

Whew! Am I glad that Swanson saved us all from listening to an uncomfortable conversation about the real issues surrounding the Duggar situation. So what did Swanson manage to talk about?

Well, he did manage to state that his radio show, Generations With Vision, is a part of the parent organization Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC). And, he did manage to mention that the Duggars have been invited to the Rocky Mountain Super Conference on the Family. He also mentioned that while the Duggars have not been asked to withdraw from the CHEC conference, the Duggars also have not informed CHEC that they will not be upholding their speaking engagement. So, as far as we know, the Duggars will still be making their appearance at this “super” conference. You know, all of this information would have made for a great disclaimer at the beginning of the show.

Screenshot 2015-06-01 at 1.20.09 PM

So why has CHEC not revoked their invitation to the Duggars for this upcoming conference? It’s all about forgiveness. And, praying and loving the Duggars. And because sin is bad (because God said so), but Jesus went to the cross for that sin so who are we to judge? I think we all just got Jesus-juked.

If it’s all about forgiveness and not judging, then I want to know when the Duggars asked CHEC and Kevin Swanson to forgive them of their sins. When did Josh Duggar approach the organization and confess what he did and ask for forgiveness? When did Michelle and Jim Bob approach the organization and Kevin Swanson and confess how they manipulated the system to hide what their son had done and ask for forgiveness? Why does Kevin Swanson pull the forgiveness card so easily when he was not the one who was wronged? Why is he so quick to forgive and forget? Honestly, it is my opinion that Kevin Swanson views victims of sexual abuse as bitter and he has very little empathy toward victims of abuse.

Co-host, Steve Vaughn, summarizes this attitude by quoting Ephesians 4:31-32, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” With this comes the call for all Christians to put it all away. Stop being bitter and slanderous toward the Duggars. Be tender-hearted and compassionate. Because that is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.

To which I reply, “Shame on you!”

Shame on you, Steve Vaughn, for callously laughing at victims of incest. And for saying that homosexuality is the same as incest.

Shame on you, Kevin Swanson, for not taking seriously the issues that have been exposed about how the Duggars mishandled Josh’s sexual molesting of young children.

And, shame on you Kevin Swanson for the appearance of not addressing the issue because it may impact your parent organization’s “super” conference. Because, if the Duggars don’t show up, then you need to take out “We’ve Got the Duggars” on your banner and then people may not be as interested in attending.

Why Dan Savage’s Call to Redefine “Duggar” Will Only Further Hurt Josh Duggar’s Victims

HA Editorial Team12 Comments

Dan Savage. CC image courtesy of Flickr, soundfromwayout.

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

The Duggar family tragedy has received widespread media attention over the last couple weeks. At least five young girls were allegedly molested by Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, stars of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting. The family waited several years to report the crimes. When they finally did so, they only told a police officer who was a family friend, who himself was later convicted of child pornography.

The tragedy has prompted claims of hypocrisy due to the fact that both Michelle and her son have repeatedly decried LGBT* people as potential child molesters when in fact her son — held up by the Religious Right as a paragon defender of traditional family values — was an actual molester, according to a recently revealed police report. Even more ironic is that Jim Bob Duggar, during his 2002 campaign for U.S. Senate, called for executing sex offenders during the exact same time period in which Josh allegedly was committing sex crimes against fellow children.

The plight of the five young girls has provoked a vast array of responses, with conservatives like Mike Huckabee and Matt Walsh jumping on soap boxes to defend Josh and liberals like Mike Luckovich gleefully asking the Internet to redefine “Duggar” in a way that invokes sexual abuse. In the midst of all these reactions, sex columnist Dan Savage offered a moment of sanity and compassion on NBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. On the show, Savage gave the sober reminder that, “We have to remember as we talk about this that five little girls — at least five little girls — were abused and molested and there’s nothing here to take delight in or celebrate.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Savage on this point. Because not only am I a survivor of child sexual abuse, I am also a homeschool alumnus who was homeschooled in a Christian environment my entire life, much like the five young girls and their attacker. I also am the Executive Director of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness and education about child abuse, mental illness, and other issues within Christian homeschooling. My work has led me to connect with hundreds of homeschool children and graduates around the United States who have experienced abuse within homeschooling, much like Josh’s victims. And our collective pain is not funny nor should it be reduced to punch lines by the media. I appreciate that Savage realizes the seriousness of the situation.

This is why I was surprised today to see Savage has now joined in the call to redefine “Duggar.” Savage previously experienced great success with redefining “Santorum” to cleverly punch up at Rick Santorum’s anti-LGBT stances, a moment in Internet history that I found humorous.

However, Santorum never faced charges of abusing other people in his family who share his last name. But Josh Duggar does.

I do not want to further violate Josh’s victims’ privacy (In Touch did a good enough job with that). So suffice it to say that several of Josh’s victims also share the name “Duggar.” Which means that these efforts to brand Josh with his crimes will also brand all of his victims with a permanent reminder of the horrendous pain inflicted upon them.

For homeschool alumni like myself, the Duggar tragedy is a watershed moment for us. We have fought for several years now to bring attention to the abuses and problems within religious homeschooling. While we have had some minor successes, it has taken the sex crimes of a television star to thoroughly break down the walls and shine a light upon the rotten nature of these high-control, Christian educational subcultures. For some of us, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. For others, it’s bittersweet that it took this — five young girls being molested — for the U.S. at large to finally care about our and our younger peers’ plights.

The very least that the media can do — and the very least that celebrities like Dan Savage should do — is handle these stories (our stories) with compassion and sensitivity towards survivors and victims. Please don’t make our pain into punch lines and please don’t start campaigns to permanently brand fellow survivors with memories of their attackers. Put your energy instead into further helping us expose what’s going on behind the doors of many Christian homeschooling families.

Help us bring to light the fact that just because a homeschooling family is on TV, all smiles and politeness, doesn’t mean that family is safe.

It’s Not Just the Duggars

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Melissa’s blog Permission to Live. It was originally published on May 23, 2015.

This post has been a long time coming, and with the Duggar scandal all over the news, it’s been on my mind again. First off, let me say that what Josh Duggar did was wrong, and how the media has handled this story has been pretty awful too. Tabloids have been flippant about sharing police documents with the victims’ names on them, and since the Duggar family has been very vocally against LGBTQ people, who they claim are child-molesters, there are a lot of people eager to point out the hypocrisy of covering up the deeds of a child molester in their midst. I think there is plenty out there on what happened and how it was “handled”, I want to talk about the why. So many people are shocked and horrified that this happened in a “good christian family” like the Duggars, but it didn’t surprise me at all. I grew up in this movement, along with 10 siblings.

Sibling incest is not young, similarly aged siblings curiously looking at each others’ genitals. It is initiated by one sibling, and there is usually a 3 (or more) year age gap. Risk factors for sibling incest include power imbalances, parentalized siblings, lack of sex education, and other forms of abuse already occurring in the home. Judging by the general information we have about the Duggars, a lot of these factors are present. The sheer amount of children dictates that the older children care for the younger ones. And in the police report interviews none of the children interviewed even knew the correct names for the human anatomy when it came to genitals.

In a large homeschooling family, older siblings are often in charge of the younger ones. Younger children are expected to obey their older siblings as they would a parent and may face punishment from the parents or even the siblings if they do not obey. This creates a hierarchy where the younger children are basically powerless and have already come to expect that they do not have a say in how they are treated. Sexual actions initiated by the older sibling are not likely to be resisted or talked about in this sort of relationship.

If a parent is physically or emotionally largely unavailable, such as would be the case for anyone with 19 children, parenting younger children can often fall to the older ones. The older child is often experiencing the parental neglect as well, and since they are not emotionally mature enough to handle being a parent, they end up relying on the younger child for whom they have parental responsibilities for emotional fulfillment. Sometimes this leads to sexual actions as well.   Other abuse existing in the home greatly increases the likelihood of sexual abuse occurring. If children are used to being emotionally abused or physically abused, they do not have healthy boundaries or understandings of their rights as a human being.

In the conservative christian homeschool worldview sex ed is extremely lacking. We are talking about no knowledge of what sex is, human anatomy, etc. I grew up in this movement. My parents did not allow books in the house with such information. I remember when an art book from my grandparents included a nude sketch, my parents stapled several thick sheets of paper over it. I was told when I was 10 about menstruation and that babies grow in a womb inside a woman’s belly with help from a seed from her husband. I was at several of my siblings’ home births. But that was it. When I was 17, I found a book in the library filled with pictures of fetal development; on one page it showed 2 thermal images of a penis showing how flaccid = cool, and erect/engorged = warm. This was the first time I was aware of the fact that erections were a part of (penis-in-vagina) sex. I went to a different section and found “Seventeen magazine’s girls guide to sex”, and I put it inside of a large history book so no one could see what I was really reading and sat in the back corner on the floor reading as fast as a could. This was how I finally figured out that sex (the thing that only married people were supposed to do when they love each other very much, and was sinful and dirty otherwise) did not magically happen while 2 people slept in the same bed, and I was 17. I was 20 and married before I learned what a clitoris was. I had several children before I finally heard of the concept of “consent”.

This sheltering did not keep me from being a sexual person; it just left me with a complete lack information about it. I had no understanding of boundaries, or consent or even that masturbating was a sexual (albeit normal) act.  My point is that it is entirely possible to be a teenage, conservative, homeschooled kid, and have no idea what is sexual and what is not, or what is appropriate and what is not.

So no, given the circumstances of the home, combined with their belief system, I am not surprised by sibling incest. In fact, I think this happens in large conservative families far more than anyone thinks it does. What is truly horrifying is that after setting their kids up for this to happen, Josh Duggar’s parents pushed it under the rug, kept things in house, and didn’t get help for either the molester or the children who were molested. Several of the headlines have claimed that Josh was turned in by his dad; this wasn’t true either. The investigation did not occur until over 3 years after and only because an outsider got wind of it and called the abuse hotline. Jim Bob and Michelle did their best to cover up and move on. They claim because of god’s grace the slate is wiped clean, as if it never happened. Except it did. It happens precisely because of the family system that has been paraded on TV for too long.

And it isn’t just the Duggars; this is basically the tip of the ice berg of what is out there in the conservative christian homeschooling movement. Despite the smiling wholesome-looking exterior, ignorance and repression and isolation creates this kind of set up again and again. When a system teaches that the victim is to blame, refuses to educate on or even talk about sex, treats children as property with no rights, and requires unquestioning obedience, it is not surprising when dysfunction comes to light.

When “Family Values” Means Covering for Child Sexual Assault

HA Editorial Team15 Comments

Matt Walsh (l) with Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar (r).

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on May 26, 2015.

In March 2002, Jim Bob Duggar found out that his fourteen-year-old son, Josh, was sexually molesting prepubescent girls. Jim Bob did not say anything about this to the authorities until July 2003, even as it continued to happen and the list of victims grew. And in the wake of these revelations, I have been absolutely horrified by the number of people who have said they would not have immediately reported their fourteen-year-old son for molesting prepubescent girls either.

I have a six-year-old daughter. The number of people who have said they wouldn’t report their teenage son for molesting girls either makes me worried for my own daughter. I look around at families with teenage sons and I wonder. If that boy molested children, would his parents turn him in, or would they cover for him? Whose safety and wellbeing would they prioritize—their son’s, or my daughter’s?

Here is Matt Walsh’s answer:

3) I know I’m opening myself up to serious criticism here, but let me be honest with you: If my own son, God forbid, came to me and admitted to doing what Josh Duggar did, I don’t know that I’d immediately run to the cops.

Would you? Is it really that simple? The decision to have your child arrested as a sex offender would be an automatic thing for you? Really?

I guess I’m just a horrible person then.

. . .

As a parent, you have to think whether your 14 year old son deserves to have his life ruined over his mistakes. Maybe you’d decide that he does. I can’t say I’d agree.

Mistakes?! That’s what we’re calling sexually assaulting a child now?!

Do you see what I mean about prioritizing the wellbeing of the abuser over that of his current and future victims? Walsh says a fourteen-year-old child molester doesn’t deserve “to have his life ruined over his mistakes,” because apparently ensuring that he is punished for his abuse and prevented from abusing in the future is just too much to ask for.

Did I mention that I have a six-year-old daughter?

I suspect Walsh would say that his hypothetical son’s abuse would be punished and future abuse prevented, it’s just that this would be carried out by him as father rather than by the authorities. But we have authorities and a process for dealing with child sexual abuse for a reason. Parents frequently make excuses for their own children, as we see Walsh doing in his hypothetical. Parents are less likely to play hardball and more likely to believe justifications or excuses.

I’m sure Jim Bob felt he appropriately punished Josh in March 2002, when he first learned of Josh’s behavior, but for a full year after that Josh went on to victimize more girls. Had Jim Bob immediately taken the matter to the authorities and sought professional help for his son, this might have been prevented.

I’m honestly not sure how it’s not painfully obvious that parents should not be the ones handling punishment and prevention if their child sexually assaults another child. It is very common for someone who has molested one child to molest other children. Josh Duggar, for his part, molested five girls from two different families. Parents should not be the ones dealing with this. We have authorities and professionals for a reason!

Well sure, Walsh would say, but what if you had a teenage son and found out he’d sexually fondled a young girl? Would you turn him in, and ruin his life? Yes I absolutely would, but I reject the framing of the question. Turning someone in for child sexual assault helps ensure that they will get help, that they will get treatment, and (hopefully) that they will turn their lives around and not victimize more children. And yes, I do have a son. He’s not fourteen yet, but he will be someday.

Turning someone in for child sexual assault can only be framed as “ruining their life” if you remove their victims, present and future, from the picture entirely. Does life as a registered sex offender truly weigh more on the scale than the life of a sexually abused child whose abuser walks the street with no record or legal consequences for his actions?

My daughter’s school does background checks not only for teachers and school staff but also for volunteers and chaperones. An increasing number of churches do background checks for their childcare workers and Sunday school teachers as well. The goal is to protect children by ensuring that they will not be placed in the care of someone with a history of molesting children. Denying child sex offenders this sort of access also helps ensure that they will not reoffend. If Josh Duggar wanted to volunteer at my daughter’s school, or work in the religious education program at our church, he would be permitted to do so, because a background check wouldn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, even though he sexually molested five girls, some as young as five years old.

Background checks only do what they’re supposed to do if people report child sexual abuse, no matter who the perpetrator is.

Mostly, right now, I want Matt Walsh and all of the other conservatives saying that they, too, would not have reported their son to get off the moral high horse they ride so often when it comes to religion and family. How can they proclaim “family values” from the rooftops and yet openly state that they would cover for their fourteen-year-old son if they found out he was sexually assaulting children?

Matt Walsh is on record arguing that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, because of the potential harm to children, and that transgender women shouldn’t be allowed to use the women’s bathroom because of concerns about women’s safety. But when it comes to the potential harm to children and threat to children’s safety posed by unreported child sexual abuse, suddenly what matters is protecting the abuser? For all Walsh’s claims of “progressive hypocrisy,” he really needs to look in mirror.

How I Would Have Responded as a Parent to the Josh Duggar Sexual Abuse Scenario

HA Editorial Team21 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Eduardo Sánchez.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on May 25, 2015.

This past week has been a whirlwind with the Josh Duggar sex abuse allegations from 12 years that recently surfaced. Josh Duggar is the eldest child of Patriarchical family and model ATI (Bill Gothard’s homeschool curricula) family. Josh Duggar and his family star in the popular reality show on TLC, 19 Kids and Counting. As this story has been brought to light, I have found myself caught up in intense debates, even with very close friends, on how this case should be handled, how we as Christians should be responding to this specific case, and how we as parents should respond if our child sexually abuses another child.

I recently posted the following (slightly revised) as part of a discussion with a Christian friend on Facebook. We came from very different sides, but because my response was so radically different from hers, I thought it might be good to post for discussion. I never mind push back, so if you disagree with me, please respond. I am open to the challenge and will consider your words just as I have been challenged to rethink many of my former ways/beliefs.

At the end of the post is a highly recommended article that helps to explain the culture and teachings which shaped the Duggar family. It will help to explain why these young female victims are true victims to more than just sex abuse.

*****

I appreciate the opportunity to share my heart which is invested in the ministry to abuse victims. I probably would not have given you this same answer 10 years ago, or even 6 years ago.

I do not believe that Josh’s parents responded appropriately. I believe they did the best they knew at the time and their intentions and heart were right. However, since working the last 5 years extensively studying spiritual abuse and abuse in the church, networking with Boz Tchividjian (founder of netgrace.org), and many other professionals who deal with abuse in church, I am concluding that the Duggars could have done better.

Jim-Bob found out in March of 2002 and waited over a year before reporting. When police tried to interview Josh, Jim-Bob intervened and did not allow that to happen. The statute of limitations then kicked in and Josh was free from any civil repercussions.

I believe this was not a good witness to Christ. What does this tell the world – that Christians get to walk free and don’t need to go by the law? Repenting of sins does not remove someone from the consequences of the laws of the land. Scripture says that God is the one who ordained civil authorities/law. Knowingly harboring a sex offender without reporting is illegal in some states. Not only that, I believe it is circumventing what God has established for cases like this:

Romans 13:1-5:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

Because of the statute of limitations, no civil court had the opportunity to intervene, convict, give recommendations on his criminal activity. Could this public outcry against Josh and his parents be sovereignly planned as God’s judgment as implied in the above Scripture? Could Josh’s defenders be interfering with God’s judgment or the natural consequences of his sin?

You asked would I report. Yes, I absolutely would report my sons to authorities if they were sexually abusing. I would allow the civil authorities to bring justice to the offender. This would send a very strong message that sin/sex abuse has consequences and will not be tolerated. And to the survivors, it would send a message that we believe them and the abuse they incurred was worthy of strict punishment. I’ve seen the tremendous burden lifted off of victims’ shoulders when they see perpetrators punished for their crimes.

I would also promptly seek qualified professional treatment specializing in sex abuse for the offender and their victims. I know about the lasting consequences survivors face. If not dealt with timely and by trained professionals, young ladies often have difficulty choosing good spouses, have difficulty with relationships, intimacy, etc. For the offender, it may be uncovered in treatment that he was previously molested. Trained professionals can be helpful in getting to the root issues.

I’m struck at how much time is spent defending Josh, and such little time focused on his victims. It’s disturbing to even discuss whether he touched them over/under their clothes (I read the police report and it’s not clear on all of the interviews). That has no bearing on the suffering the victims face/will face.

Throughout scripture God speaks of protecting the oppressed and defenseless. How is it protecting them when we are outwardly and vocally defending a perpetrator (even if he has repented)? Our first response must be to those who have no voice. You can be sure that sex abuse survivors all over are watching this case and observing how people respond. Any time a survivor hears of another abuse, it brings them back to their own story. We must think of all victims in our responses and model Christ’s love because many times they are questioning why God allowed this to happen. We must not be a stumbling block to the weak and oppressed, but a soothing balm, sharing with them the love of the Father.

The Duggars were the key family chosen by ATI/Bill Gothard to represent Bill Gothard and his homeschool curriculum. I read that they spoke even this year at an ATI conference (they are slated to speak by video tomorrow in Nashville, and later in Twin Cities, and Sacramento ATI conferences). You can be sure they hold to his teachings and it is important to understand these teachings in order to fully comprehend what the victims have faced. I encourage you to read the following and try to grasp what the victims have faced, the ones whom God dearly loves and wants to defend and protect. Here’s how the Duggars’ patriarchal homeschool world teaches kids to shame sex abuse victims

Thank you for reading. Grace and peace!