Leaderboard

There are many things about this situation that have bothered me a lot - so much so that I had nightmares about it the night after the story broke. I had a hard time figuring out why it bothered me so much (besides the whole "sexually fondling your young sibling is wrong" stuff.) And it comes back to my time in twi from childhood to adulthood. Here are the things that bother me: 1. The hiding of the sin - dealing with the problem in-house instead of involving proper authorities who could actually HELP and COUNSEL those involved. The Duggars found out their son was molesting his sisters. They went to the CHURCH to get help, and decided to send their son to a "christian camp" with hard labor to help him get over the problem. They didn't get any real counselling for any of the kids or themselves. Sound like TWI much? How often was child molestation/abuse swept under the rug by leadership? I know of several instances listed on this site, and more that I have known about personally. 2. They brought him to a cop for a "talking to" and the cop turned out to have his own collection of child porn that he is now spending time in prison for. How many times were people in TWI held up as great examples to us who had the worst crap in their lives? VPW's marriage anyone? Martindale's? All the extramarital sex and abuse and rape, and these a s s h o l e s are held up as shining examples. Just like this cop. Who never filed a report. 3. Homosexuality is the ultimate sin... Yup. Totally willing to forgive the son who molested the daughters, sweep it under the rug, but the whole while accusing people they had never met - of molesting children, namely the LGBT community. Michelle Duggar recorded a robo call urging people to vote against legislation for equal rights for the LGBT community BECAUSE THEY WILL MOLEST YOUR CHILDREN. Really? How about your STRAIGHT SON who molested your kids? How about how he is now running (oops, formerly running) a HATE GROUP against homosexuals. Yup, because consensual sex between adults is so much worse than feeling up your five year old sister. 4. The throw away nature of females - his sisters. Taught that they are only good if they remain physically/sexually pure. That they are "like a cup filled with other people's spit" if they have premarital sex. Taught to be submissive to the male authority figure. Taught that their only purpose is to serve the man. Men are superior in every way, and her worth only comes from serving them. The Duggar's statement focuses on their SON and how he has recovered, nothing about the daughters he molested. 5. The attitude that we should all just let bygones be bygones because he is forgiven. He came back after a couple months of hard labor to LIVE in the SAME HOUSE with his victims, who he molested in their sleep. EVERY DAY having to know that he DEFILED YOU (because of their purity teachings) and you have to trust him again. Can you imagine? They homeschooled. There was no where those girls could go to get away from him. And everyone expected (and demanded) that they just forgive him and trust him and carry on as if nothing had happened. Reminds me of so many times I had to work with people who had done terrible things to me - because they had gotten "back in fellowship" with God. Like my Way Disciple coordinator who would tell strangers we were witnessing to that I had slept with him (a LIE) and once he was confronted by leadership I had to continue to work with him. 6. That there are so many "fans" that still defend him and the parents... saying that anyone who says differently is attacking "family values" or "Christian values" - last time I looked child molestation is not covered under "family values" or "Christian values." Don't hold yourself up as a paragon of virtue while you cover up the crap in your past. Don't come to me telling me about the "Rightly divided Word of God" when you are raping young women behind closed doors all the while telling them you are healing them. And those people on the internet who are still "Team Duggar" need to take a little deeper look. Just like we did when we found out about the cover up in twi. And I'm out. Have a great night everyone. Hoping mine is free of Duggar induced PTSD nightmares. Love ya.

Even at the height of my fundamentalist stage, I did not have a serious issue with homosexuality. I don't know if it's a genetic thing, a character thing, or an environmental thing. What I do know is that most homosexuals do not feel they "chose" homosexuality over hetero. Nor did I have serious issues with marriage between homosexuals. Now I do not care about that, nor do I care about whether people decide to poly marry. Why? Because why we marry today is not the reason why people got married in the past, nor was it something ordained by god. It was around long before any of the monotheistic religions. Back in the day it was essentially a contract between 2 families. It was done to solidify power, or keep the peace. In early Christianity marriage was something one did when one was too earthly to be chaste. It did not achieve "sacrament" status until the 12th century, which IMO totally takes it out of the realm of being something that is religious in origin or nature, much less ordained by god. Whether homosexuals marry does not in any way interfere with my marriage. The quality of my marriage has not changed since homosexuals have been able to marry in my state. Whether or not homosexuals can have children should not interfere with marriage. Plenty of heterosexuals either can't or choose not to have children. No one's denying them marriage. If multiple people want to marry - let them. The problem is when someone is drug into that lifestyle who wants no part of it. OR when men are allowed to have more than one wife, yet women can't have more than one husband. The "who's the father" argument is a moot point and in plural marriage, support and raising of the children should have no bearing on parentage. Where I would draw the line is the age of consent. And that is because certain religions tend to marry off children way before they can consent - particularly the polygamist groups. Not that I noticed, but religious groups tend to be the ones who take advantage of the young and force people into lifestyles that they might not choose on their own. And religious people need to get off their high horse about providing services to non-hetero couples. Baking a cake is baking a cake. Flowers are flowers. Pictures are pictures. But, I can't imagine that someone would want to force a pastor into marrying them to someone. That would be downright unnatural and out of character in any context.