The Duggars Accused Of Being Hypocrites Over Anti-LGBT Stance

Let's get one thing straight: Despite their TV deals and glowing articles in various entertainment magazines — from People on February 18, 2015: "Duggar exclusive! Jessa and Ben Seewald open up about date nights, first fights, and their decision to adopt" — the family has never been a paragon of virtue, so far as civil rights are concerned.  It was disturbing to see the conservative brood trotted out as celebrities when their religious views conflicted with progressive thinking on issues like birth control and homosexuality, especially with family members actively working to deny rights to the LGBT community. It's even more disturbing when you consider the family and their community's handling of eldest son Josh Duggar's molestation of five underage females 12 years ago. It's only natural that people will step forward and lash out at the reality stars and their lifestyle in light of Josh's confession. It's just disappointing that it didn't happen sooner. Haven't we always known that these guys were on the wrong side of history? At any rate, media pundits are drooling, as they should be. On Friday night, writer and LGBT advocate Dan Savage stated the obvious a bit when he branded the Duggars hypocrites during an appearance on All In With Chris Hayes. Savage cited the TLC stars' work to suppress an anti-discrimination bill in Arkansas, for which matriarch Michelle Duggar recorded a robocall to warn voters that allowing a trans women to use a women's restroom would "endanger their daughters or allow them to be traumatized by a man joining them in their private space." "Particularly when religious conservatives want to talk about it, they want to point a finger at non-family," Savage says in the video below. "They want to point a finger at people that they define as the enemies of families or not from or having families of their own — LGBT people, particularly trans people increasingly with these anti-trans bathroom bills. "That is what the Duggars have dug in on, is attacking trans people and opposing this LGBT civil rights bill in Fayetteville, where they were out there arguing that the threat to little girls in Fayetteville were trans women when they knew, when they were covering for someone who had demonstrated, at least at that age, was a threat to little girls himself.”   Savage is, of course, right. The Duggars' actions and fear-mongering were offensive then, and doubly so now. Perhaps it took an act as despicable and vile as child molestation for the public at large to see the Duggars as they are. Still, let's not let schadenfreude cloud our vision. A crime was committed, and the victims have been silenced for more than a decade. There may be gloating, but there certainly won't be a happy ending. (Huffington Post)