Over the years, the Duggars and their extended family have proven that their conservative Christian views do not align with the LGBT movement. Jim Bob, Michelle, and even some of their children have openly spoken out against gay people in the past. Recently, however, one member of the Duggars’ extended family has seemingly shown the first signs of tolerance and open-mindedness to the LGBT community.
Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard are proud Christians, so much so that they opted to pursue a life of missionary work in South America prior to baby Samuel’s recent birth. The couple’s Instagram pages have also been filled with conservative, domestic photos. Derick, however, has maintained an active Twitter account, where he could respond to his followers directly. This is where things recently got interesting.
Back on July 28, Richard Grenell, arguably the longest-serving spokesman for the United States at the UN, posted a tweet supporting the LGBT community. Surprisingly, Derick Dillard, husband of Jill Duggar of the hyper-conservative reality TV family, liked Grenell’s tweet . Here is the tweet that Grenell posted and Derick promptly liked.
Derick’s rather unusual Twitter activity has managed to incite a number of discussions among fans of the Duggar clan. In the official Counting On subreddit, for one, many of the family’s followers and fans have begun talking about the possible reasons why Derick opted to support a message that was so overtly supportive of the LGBT community .
A number of Counting On redditors have suggested that Derick probably liked the tweet simply because he was focusing on the second part of Grenell’s message, which referenced discrimination among Christians at the workplace. While there is a good chance that this might be the case, other users of the subreddit argued that Grenell’s message was loud and clear, and that since Derick liked the tweet, he must be in support of the entire statement.
“I’m still hopeful because the overall sentiment is equality. Hopefully he’s looking past his own perspective and has empathy for another group,” one commenter wrote.
Some fans have also suspected that Derick might have just liked Grenell’s tweet by mistake. Considering that the reality TV star has not removed his like on the post so far, however, some Counting On fans believe that when Jill Duggar’s husband decided to approve Grenell’s post on Twitter, he did so being fully aware of the tweet’s message.
While Jill Duggar and her husband are still a long way from being fully tolerant of the LGBT community, Derick Dillard’s latest activity in the microblogging platform at least seems to indicate that the couple might actually eventually be open to the idea of being more tolerant of others in the future. As the saying goes, the conservative reality TV star is at least taking baby steps.
“They have a LONG way to go before anyone in their right mind could consider them tolerant, but at least there is this slight sign of progress,” wrote another member of the Counting On Reddit community.
Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard are featured in the 19 Kids and Counting spinoff series Counting On , which is set to return on TLC this coming September.
[Featured Image by Jill Dillard/ Instagram ]
