The Family Research Council (FRC) says that their mission is “to champion marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society”, which is social conservative speak meaning that they fight against same sex marriage. They seem to be losing the gay marriage battle, and it sounds like they aren’t doing so well on the family front either.
You may have heard about the scandal in July, when their executive director Josh Duggar, who was also one of the kids on the TLC reality TV show “19 Kids and Counting”, was accused of having molested five underage girls starting in 2002, four of whom were his sisters.
Duggar tried to absolve himself of past wrongdoing by posting the following to his Facebook page:
Twelve years ago, as a young teenager I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends. I confessed this to my parents who took several steps to help me address the situation. We spoke with the authorities where I confessed my wrongdoing and my parents arranged for me and those affected by my actions to receive counseling. I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life. I sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life. I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions. In my life today, I am so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption.
Duggar resigned from the FRC and TLC cancelled the show.
But wait, there’s more! Hackers just uploaded information from the website Ashley Madison, a “dating” site for people who want to cheat on their spouses (their motto is “Life is short. Have an affair.”) It turns out that a credit card in Duggar’s name was used to pay for not one but two memberships in the cheating site, one using the address near DC where he and his family lived when he was lobbying for the FRC, and the other for the house featured in the TLC TV show. The two memberships overlapped by a few months, but Duggar had at least one active membership from February 2013 until May 2015 (just before the scandal broke).
That means that during the time Duggar was the executive director of the FRC and appearing in a reality show about a devout religious family, he spent around a $1000 on memberships to a cheater’s website, which was important enough that he needed two memberships, one for when he was doing his FRC job, and one for when he was home with his family. It also looks like Duggar had an account on another dating site, OkCupid.
So much for God’s redemption. He might have stopped molesting children a decade ago, but he was still cheating on his wife up until a few months ago. But I do have to agree with Duggar on one thing. On Thursday Duggar posted on the family’s website admitting that he cheated on his wife and saying that he is the “biggest hypocrite ever”.
Is this true?
8 Comments
They need more vetting of people before they start representing the organization.
There’s a scene in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” where Frederick, the aging, cynical intellectual, is talking about popular culture, cults and TV and says: “But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.” Even more true today than it was in 1986. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091167/quotes
John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” did an excellent piece on the hypocrisy of Jesus TV and the giant tax loopholes therein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg. In it, he demonstrates how easy and perfectly legal it is to set up a tax free haven in Jesus’ name (Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption). I almost started to feel like an idiot for not starting up my own, until it hit me. Dammit all, I have a conscience!
The FRC and “19 Kids and Counting” is just another iteration of this vile bile.
The most delightful revelation about the Ashley Madison hacking story is the large number of .gov email accounts turning up there, apparently NSA employees as well, prompting an investigation by the Pentagon. So the geniuses entrusted with our national security didn’t even take the simplest steps that a horny teenager would do to cover their tracks by taking five minutes to set up a yahoo or hotmail account. Our tax dollars at work!
Ralph, that John Oliver video is scheduled to be posted tonight (I normally schedule stories in advance). It is awesome!
And I totally agree with your sentiments about spying. There is absolutely no evidence that the people who do the spying are trustworthy in the least, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Add to that a large dose of stupidity and you realize that the huge US spying apparatus is a dangerous joke and must be reined in.
Oops, sorry IK, didn’t mean to scoop ya!
Not a problem! I don’t see everything.
Unfortunately, I can only find pics with Huckabee, Santorum, Perry, Cruz, Bush, Paul, Jindal, and Walker. Still an impressive list. That kid was certainly busy in more ways than one.
IK, one problem is with spys is, who else would get in the spy business. I read the book Double Cross, the US didn’t trust the British double-agents. We were offered good sources and turned them down on principles. Now we’ve gone to the other extreme.
Ralph, don’t those conscious things get in the way! That’s why I’m selling mine on Ebay. Any takers?