Jill Duggar’s Husband, Derick Dillard, Is Voting For Donald Trump Despite Jill’s Experience With Sexual Abuse
Jill Duggar’s husband, Derick Dillard, is officially supporting Donald Trump, a man who has bragged about sexually assaulting women. Jill is a sexual abuse survivor, but she’ll also likely vote for the controversy-plagued GOP nominee who is dividing the evangelical community.
Jill Duggar hasn’t said a peep about the 2016 presidential election, opting to leave the politicking to her “headship.” Derick recently reminded his Twitter followers to register to vote, and one fan responded by asking him who he is voting for. He revealed that he is supporting Donald Trump, but the evangelical reality show star didn’t bother explaining why. As Talking Points Memo reports, Jill Duggar and her sisters were raised to believe that “wives should be submissive to the authority of their husbands,” so if Derick tells her to vote for Donald Trump, she’ll vote for Donald Trump.
Unsurprisingly, the missionary couple’s candidate choice caused controversy.
“Would you be okay with Jill being treated how Trump admits he treats women? With Israel acting lewd like Trump when he’s grown?” one of Derick’s followers tweeted in response to his Trump endorsement.
“That sounds reasonable since @realDonaldTrump and @joshduggar both sexually assault women,” another responded.
As Fox News reports, Jill Duggar and three of her sisters were sexually molested by their older brother Josh when they were children. Last summer, Jill and her younger sister Jessa appeared on The Kelly File to talk about their struggle to forgive Josh Duggar for what he did to them. However, Jill also tried to defend Josh by saying that what she and her sisters experienced was “very mild compared to what happens to some young women.”
Jill Duggar ultimately did forgive Josh for inappropriately touching her, so perhaps she’s also forgiven Donald Trump for bragging about groping women. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Trump can be heard talking about the way he treats women in a 2005 recording of an Access Hollywood segment.
“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump told Access Hollywood host Billy Bush. “Grab them by the p*ssy. You can do anything.”
According to the Washington Post, ten women have come forward to accuse Trump of inappropriately touching them without their consent since the Access Hollywood tape was released.
“Evangelical Christians cannot excuse Donald Trump’s words” https://t.co/LrWZnmP8Kz
— TIME (@TIME) October 14, 2016
Many Duggar fans may find it hard to imagine conservative fundamentalist Christians like Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard voting for a man who has gloated about groping women, profited from strip clubs, and bragged about having affairs. As the Daily Beast reported earlier this year, Trump is so unrepentant about his sexual history that boasting about bedding married women used to be a part of his stump speech. And he doesn’t just make evangelicals cringe by celebrating sin — as CNN reports, Trump also made them question his Christian credentials by saying that he has never asked God for forgiveness.
Interestingly, it’s Hillary Clinton who has behaved more like a Duggar when it comes to something that’s very important to the Counting On stars: taking marriage vows seriously. Just like Anna Duggar, Hillary Clinton stood by her man when she found out that he had been unfaithful. Trump, on the other hand, has been divorced twice and married three times.
Jill and Derick are likely overlooking Trump’s blatantly un-Christian behavior because their pastor, former Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd, said that it’s okay to do so. As the Inquisitr previously reported, Floyd is a member of Donald Trump’s religious advisory board. In a post on the Christianity Today website, Floyd tried to make evangelical Christians feel better about voting for Trump by arguing that they should be focused on issues like abortion and defense of “religious liberty,” not the character of the man or woman who will have access to the nuclear codes.
Jill Duggar may fall in line and vote for Donald Trump because her husband and her pastor have convinced her to look past his personal failings, but other Christian women are refusing to reward his bad behavior by voting him into the most powerful position in the United States. As the Huffington Post reports, more than 700 female leaders in the Christian community recently came together and signed a letter condemning Donald Trump’s misogynistic words and actions. One of these women, Dr. Laura Levens, Assistant Professor of Christian Mission, Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, explained why she won’t be voting for the GOP nominee.
“Over and over and over again, I have witnessed a cycle of male leaders being easily forgiven for sexual indiscretion, misconduct, and assault, and I have had enough. Men are caught, men say they apologize, and then other Christian leaders exhort the rest of us, especially women, to forgive and continue to trust the man in power because he apologized. I’m done with this message. The Christian message of forgiveness should no longer be co-opted to maintain men in places of power, especially not the office of the President of the United States.”
Are you surprised that Derick Dillard and Jill Duggar are Donald Trump supporters? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[Image by TLC/YouTube]
