Enough With The Duggars Already


By now, you’ve no doubt heard about Josh Duggar’s crimes. You’ve seen breathless media coverage of the fallout from those crimes; Josh Duggar resigning from his job; Jim Bob Duggar hypocritcally calling incest a sin worthy of death while looking the other way at his son molesting his daughters; the disgusting way the family’s home school curriculum treats sexual abuse.

And if you’re like this writer, you’re sick of hearing about it.

The fact is, the Duggars would be a family that no one outside of Fayetteville would have ever heard of or remotely cared about had TLC not given them a show.

The Duggars are ridiculous people. If that’s news to you, the very fact that TLC gave them a show ought to be Exhibit A. TLC’s entire business model consists of taking ridiculous people (like Honey Boo Boo or Kate Gosselin or people addicted to eating mattress foam) and parading them in front of the cameras for TV audiences to gawk at. And TLC executives cash their paychecks whether the audience gets it or not.

Still, like the Robertsons of the Duck Dyansty franchise, the Duggars – a conservative, Bible-believing (or Bible-thumping, depending on your point of view), rural family – struck a chord with conservative audiences who felt that people like them were being overlooked by the mainstream media.

Another segment of the Duggars’ audience gawked in horror at the ways of a weird family that practiced a lifestyle that, at best, can be considered quaint, and at worst, dangerous.

But regardless of anyone’s reason for watching the show, the fact remains that the Duggars were, and are, ridiculous people that deserved, at most, to be ignored. And this is especially true now that the family’s lifestyle has publicly blown up in their faces.

It’s time to stop caring about the Duggars.

Yes, Jim Bob Duggar is a hypocrite. Yes, he was complicit in a crime. Yes, the brand of religious fundamentalism his family practices is probably damaging to the children. And yes, certain individuals in Arkansas’ law enforcement community may have covered up Josh’s crimes. All of those things will likely be sorted out and dealt with, satisfactorily or not, in the coming weeks and months.

But the family has been through enough. Regardless of your feelings about them or their lifestyles, they are living through a horror. Having a family member commit crimes against other family members – then having those crimes paraded before the media – is a plight that a decent person wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.

Let them lick their wounds in peace. Let them put their girls on the path to healing in whatever way seems best to them. Let them go back to living their lives without TV cameras in their faces. Let them go back to practicing a weird brand of religious fundamentalism without broadcasting it to a national audience. Just let them be.

Being left alone is all the Duggars deserve or have ever deserved.

[Image courtesy of: Getty Images/Brendan Hoffman]

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