Media Greed Causing Immeasurable Pain to Duggar Daughters

When I read about Josh Duggar’s —  I can hardly say it even now — molestation of his sisters and another young girl, I was just as appalled and shocked as anyone else might be. ‘House of Horrors!‘ screeched the In Touch headline. Other media outlets followed suit: Salon with ‘Fox News’ Freak Show Heroes’…columnist Clarence Page with ‘Huckabee, the Duggars and Hickexploitation’…In Touch again: ‘Prison for Duggars!‘

I was horrified that that houseful of little girls and their oldest brother was, you know, like THAT. I couldn’t bear to read about any of it. But as the media furor grew, I couldn’t help it. The girls involved called out the media for identifying them, the victims, indirectly. Then they said that they hadn’t even known about most of it when it happened because they were sleeping. They pointed out that Josh, at the time, was a child himself — 14 or 15 years old.

So at last, I looked up the details. Exactly what had Josh Duggar done in that “House of Horrors”? Did he anally rape the girls after drugging them? Perhaps he masturbated in bed with them while they watched television, or paid them for hot sexy kisses. Or had them lie down and watch a train while he molested them from behind. Or maybe he filmed himself having sex with a younger girl. Had he paid one of them to have sex?

Nope, he didn’t do any of that stuff. He had touched his sisters and a babysitter where he shouldn’t have, mostly while they were asleep, and apparently over their clothes, possibly even over their bedclothes. Gross and disgusting, definitely. But when I was a kid (which really wasn’t THAT long ago), this would have rated as a notch above playing doctor.

Of course he shouldn’t have done it. But you know what? It’s entirely possible that no one would have known about it had Josh himself not confessed. Confronted with such a quandary — a young boy going through the usual confusing changes of puberty and misbehaving in terrible, but not irredeemable ways — the Duggars had a natural parental reaction.

They had him thrown in jail immediately and disowned him.

Oh, wait, no! Of course they didn’t. They took steps to protect all of their children, including Josh. When it became clear he was not able to control the behavior, they sought help through their church and arranged counseling, sending Josh to do hard physical labor helping to renovate a VA hospital for three months. Then they had him talk to a police officer about it. And — it worked. Yes, it did. The Duggars — get this — handled it well. Without government interference. Without the dubious assistance of a child protective agency, without scandal, without the names of any of the children, Josh included, being dragged through the mud and damaging them publicly and irredeemably.

Or at least they did until celebrity scandal magazines got hold of the story. Since advertiser dollars are far more important than the feelings of a loony bunch of Christians, they eagerly hauled out a decade-old story and put it up there for public consumption — because the Public has the Right to Know.

When confronted with this, of course liberal celebrities and talking heads condemned the sensationalist press’s horrifying behavior of outing a juvenile’s not-quite-criminal record and exposing all the victims and details.

Oh, but wait again! They did not do this. Instead, the general tone is that this is the Duggars’ fault. They should never have pushed their families in front of the camera, knowing they had this secret that could prove so devastating. After all, the Kardashians would never do that.

In other words, the liberal press blamed the victims.

What we are seeing, folks, is the liberal media publicly raping the five victims as they dissect this situation under the celebrity magnifying glass. Oh, sure, they’re humiliating those damned Duggars, earning the right to call them hypocrites and stuff. They’re demonstrating the Duggars are not such a shiny, perfect, happy family after all. They’re weirdo Christians anyway, the much-smarter-than-everyone-else media is really showing them.

Here’s the real truth. The liberal media are causing immeasurable pain to several already victimized young women — who did nothing at all to deserve it — all in pursuit of headlines and profit. Good job there, celebrity media. Heroic. I’ll start the slow clap for you now.