Dan Savage: Duggar Family Girls Need To Have Sex Before Marriage

Dan Savage isn’t know for being gentle about his disdain for the religious right, and the Duggar family behind TLC’s hit 19 Kids and Counting isn’t any exception. Dan recently began an obscenely named Twitter hashtag encouraging the the Duggar girls to #f**kfirst instead of waiting for marriage. He later responded to the controversy unleashed by his statements with an editorial in The Stranger.

“Full disclosure: I’m a dirty sodomite and no one — NO ONE — should listen to anything I have to say about anything. Ever. I can write whatever I want, of course, because this is a free country. (Maybe a little too free!) But there’s one thing I’m not allowed to write about: the Duggars. People like me shouldn’t even think thoughts about good people like the Duggars. Which is funny because the Duggars — children included — think thoughts about people like me.”

Savage went to on to attack the lifestyle that the Duggar family chooses in his column, particularly because of the platform that he feels they are given to spread these beliefs about sex and marriage.

“To go on television and to appear on magazine covers — to put your family at the center of a reality show—is to invite comment. Real housewives know it when they sign up, top chefs know it when they sign up, and the Duggars knew it when they signed up. And the Duggars aren’t just on TV. They’re proselytizing on TV… Family planning — access to birth control — and feminism aren’t the only things the Duggars would like to see eradicated. Their eldest son, Josh Duggar, works for the Family Research Council (FRC), one of 38 organizations designated as antigay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This fall, Jim Bob and Michelle and various little Duggars made appearances at campaign rallies for rabidly antigay, antichoice Republican candidates.”

Dan continued to berate the conservatives who had taken issue with his opinions on the sex lives of the Duggar girls. Savage argued that the Duggar girls have made a decision to live their lives in the public spotlight, and are thus susceptible to scrutiny of their family code.

“Jill and Jessa Duggar aren’t children. They’re adult women in their 20s who consented to make their sexual choices—their (not entirely free) decisions to wait, the vetting of their boyfriends, their courtship rituals, the exact timing of their first kisses, their plans to “get busy” after their marriages—the focus of a reality television show. They’ve both discussed their sexual choices with national magazines. That opens Jill and Jessa’s choices up to general discussion, and the conversation isn’t limited to people who agree with them.”

Several times in the op-ed, Dan underlined his opinion that because the Duggar family actively involves themselves in his own sex life, he has a right to say the same about them.

“So, yeah, the Duggar family — politically active TV stars with antigay and antichoice agendas — are thinking thoughts about people like me. And they’re not very nice thoughts: They’re actively working to harm families like mine. I think that gives me the right to think thoughts about them.”

Do you think Dan Savage is out of line with his comments about the Duggar girl’s sex lives?

[Image via Actress Wallpaper]