The Daily Beast is using the same guilt by association tactics the media refused to employ with Rev. Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 presidential election in order to attack the Duggars.
Who are the Duggars? They are the stars of 19 Kids and Counting, a reality show about a sweet-faced family who believe in having as many children as is biologically feasible.The Daily Beast explores a sex scandal case involving the spiritual movement affiliated with the Duggars clan, desperately trying to blame the Duggars’ lifestyle on the tawdry behavior.
Why? To demean faith and home schooling, particularly when interest in the latter is spiking thanks to Common Core.
The tone and intent are obvious from the first paragraph:
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have put many years and a lot of work into putting a smiling, nearly normal-seeming face on the extreme Christian right.
The clan even shuns contraception, something the writer makes sound like an otherworldly approach to family building.
The story then details the sordid affairs in question starting with Vision Forum Ministries President Doug Phillips, and we slowly realize the Duggars are not the ones committing the bad behavior as the presentation suggests. The article tries to drag the Duggars in all the same.
The Duggar family are friends and acolytes of Phillips, and Vision Forum, in turn, has used Michelle Duggar in their efforts to demonize contraception, including giving her an award for “Mother of the Year” for having so many children.
It’s just like Sen. Barack Obama sitting in the pew of a hateful church pastor and having him officiate his wedding. But that doesn’t count, of course.
The article still tries to pin the scandals on the Duggars and their faith.
The “pitch” of Biblical patriarchy, as epitomized by Michelle Duggar, is that women will be coddled and worshipped in exchange for giving up their ambitions and the autonomy to practice an extreme form of female submission. The unpleasant truth is that a culture that teaches that women are put on earth for no other purpose but to serve men is not going to breed respect for women. Instead, these incidents show a world where men believe they can do whatever they want to women without repercussions. Is it any surprise that a subculture that promises absolute control over women will attract men who want to dominate and hurt women? Don’t believe the TLC hype. Biblical patriarchy is a sour, dangerous world for women, and luckily, that reality is finally being outed.
Because, as we all know, sexual scandals are the exclusive province of the faith-based community.
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