The Duggar petition calling for cancellation of the family’s TLC series 19 Kids and Counting has enjoyed some success since it was launched in September of this year.
Currently, San Jose resident Jim Wissick’s effort to remove the show from the airwaves on grounds of LGBT discrimination has resulted in more than 137,000 signatures. However, fans of the quirky Christian family have responded in a big way.
The most successful of the Duggar petition efforts supporting the series has logged more than 85,000 signatures in a single day. That’s more than half of what Wissick has been able to collect in close to three months.
While most of Wissick’s signatures did come in November, Duggar fans are still overwhelming the LGBT call for cancellation no matter how you look at it, especially considering that the big one at Life Petitions is not the only petition being circulated in support of the Duggars.
The #DefendtheDuggars effort is also underway on Twitter drumming up more support for the embattled clan.
“The Duggars need your help to save their show!” writes the author of the effort. “In the past few days, liberal extremists have launched a full-scale attack on the Duggars, demanding that The Learning Channel cancel the Duggars’ popular reality TV show.”
The writer goes on to say that the reason for the cancellation call is that “Michelle Duggar openly opposed an extreme ‘transgender’ bill in Fayetteville” — a bill that “would have given biological males who say they are women the right to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other female-only facilities!”
“We need to launch a counter-attack, letting TLC know that the American people stand by the Duggars and their defense of traditional family values…. Rather than being extreme, the Duggars represent the majority of people in state after state who have stood up for the traditional family…. The real extremists are those who are demanding that a TV network penalize America’s beloved family because they support the truth about family, which they have always expressed in a loving, compassionate fashion.”
While it’s too early to tell how much credence TLC will give to either of these petitions, it’s pretty clear that should 19 Kids and Counting end, it won’t be because it lacks fan support.
TLC has not issued any kind of definitive comment on either petition effort.
What do you think, readers? Has the Duggar petition from fans saved the series from cancellation, and if not, do you think another network will pick up the family’s ongoing adventures?
