According to my daughter, still a faithful Duggar fan, TLC gave them a new, larger home, so you can count that into their income. And into making it more convenient for them to expand their family, which of course was good for TLC. TLC has always known it was promoting a cult, as its expansion with the Bates family demonstrated. And now it’s bringing on the Bates clan as a regular feature to replace the Duggars. Let’s see—Honeybooboo’s mother facilitating a child molester; the Duggar parents facilitating a child molester; TLC looking for replacements to keep producing its wholesome family entertainment… Where’s the problem?
We’ve seen behind the scenes tell-alls about programs like The Bachelor enough to know that staff for these shows–watch the closing credits to see the enormous number of off-camera personnel involved!–are intimately involved in the lives of the participants, including setting up conversations, arranging trips, rehearsing and re-shooting dialogue, and more. Yet we’re to believe that no one at TLC knew what was going on? No one was familiar with the content of conferences, retreats, counseling, and educational materials? Really? Yet no one’s accountable, no one’s punished. How very fundamentalist of TLC. Is it really about ratings or does TLC have another agenda?
Nothing new here w/r/t Gothard. He’s been grifting in the Fundamentalist Evangelical World for decades. None of what happens around him surprises me anymore, but I’m continually surprised that some people are sooooo very gullible.
GoldDuggars… Good one! Parents willing to pimp out their daughters. And it worked! The abusing son received a highly-paid, highly-influential position for which he was the opposite of qualified. The daughters went on Fox to say it was no problem and everyone should respect their privacy and move on. One of the daughters recently expressed in People magazine her disappointment that negative publicity meant that the birth of her first child wouldn’t be a television special like her sister had with her first! These are not in any sense normal people now. Hey TLC! Sanctimonious fetus-worshippers might not be the best role model parents.
The travails of the Duggar family aside, the mention of Bill Gothard brings back old memories. In the late 70s, my wife and I were still practicing Southern Baptists. Gothard was all the rage in those circles and I remember that his traveling minstrel show was due to appear in our neighborhood (Tulsa, if I recall correctly). Although Falwell hadn’t yet become a common name, I was already inching toward the door of that denomination. We had several graduates of Gothard’s clinic in our church who considered him a prophet. I recall that the tuition was stiff and didn’t include materials. I didn’t sign up, but I reviewed some materials bought by other brethren. Without overstating it, it amounted to no more than a collection of platitudes wrapped in piety. As I said, I didn’t take the course, but the adulation of a man who seemed to me to be no better than a two-bit con artist reaffirmed my opinion that I was in the wrong church. Not long after, I left for good.
Let me see where have we seen this as well??? Oh yeah one certain homophobic whore county clerk who has been married 4 times but got Ficcked by Jebus . See Jebus made her good again .
…after Josh’s training, they instituted “safeguards” to avoid further abuse, like locks on bedroom doors and not permitting the boys to be alone with their sisters…
Don’t forget, among those killed at Jonestown was a member of Congress, Leo Ryan, that went down there to find out what was going on because family members of members of the cult were so concerned. Those “outsiders” were the “threat” in the cultists eyes that led Jones and his underlings to kill the Congressman and entourage on the tarmac and initiate the mass suicide. Because Jones thought the end (for him and his followers) was at hand.
tl;dr … besides, this family skeeves me out so much the last thing i want to do is spend much time thinking about them… however, just a little update: the pervert son was detailed to some christian ‘rehab’ camp, but within days was reported missing and being spotted in some restaurant/bar with a waitress sitting on his lap, laughing and having a grand old time. and one of the daughters and her husband departed to central america to minister a village of desperately poor farmers… and routinely asking for donations to support their work. in the meantime, those donors are growing suspicious at how those funds are spent, since the couple has made three trips back to bumfuck wherever they’re from in the few months they’ve been saving souls…
Wake up America - the Republicans and the Religious Right are a bunch of perverts and bigots hiding behind the bible.
Huckabee, Santorum, Bush, Carson, Rubio, Walker and the rest of the bible thumpers are all crazies. Our crazies Vs the crazies in the Middle East - they both need to be rejected and removed from power!
