The Josh Duggar Sexual Abuse Scandal, Explained

By Tanya Pai
Vox
May 27, 2015

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8662907/josh-duggar-abuse

Josh Duggar with his wife, Anna.

Stories about reality TV star Josh Duggar and the revelations that he molested several minors while he himself was a teenager have saturated the news over the past week.

The details of the allegations are bizarre, involving an alleged cover-up by Duggar's parents and church, a disturbing police report, and a very badly timed marathon of the reality series Duggar stars in on a network that has experienced more than one reality show scandal in recent years. There's also an element of religious hypocrisy and a muted attempt to turn this into another front in the culture wars.

For people who don't watch lots of reality TV — to say nothing of those who don't watch lots of TLC reality, which is almost a genre unto itself, focused on families from outside the American mainstream — the whole thing can sound like a particularly strange satire of how far the television industry will go to garner big ratings.

But it's not.

Who are the Duggars?

The Duggars are an Arkansas family and stars of the TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting. The show, TLC's most popular, regularly scored in the Nielsen cable top 25 before it was pulled from the air.

The show began on September 29, 2008, as 17 Kids and Counting, and starred Jim Bob Duggar, a former Arkansas state representative turned real estate agent; his wife, Michelle Duggar; and their 17 biological children. Since that time, Jim Bob and Michelle have had two more children.

The names of all 19 children are:

Joshua James

Jana Marie

John-David

Jill Michelle

Jessa Lauren

Jinger Nicole

Joseph Garrett

Josiah Matthew

Joy-Anna

Jedediah Robert

Jeremiah Robert

Jason Michael

James Andrew

Justin Samuel

Jackson Levi

Johannah Faith

Jennifer Danielle

Jordyn-Grace

Josie Brooklyn

Over the course of the show’s 10 seasons, three of Jim Bob and Michelle’s children — Josh, Jill, and Jessa — have gotten married and have had or are expecting children of their own.

The Duggars are strict Baptists. They adhere to many of the principles of the "Christian patriarchy" movement, though they claim not to be members themselves in their second book, A Love That Multiplies. Christian patriarchy, also often known as the "quiverfull" movement, is a strain of fundamentalist Christianity that, as the Daily Beast puts it, emphasizes "a combination of beliefs that run counter to mainstream America: absolute female submission, a ban on dating, homeschooling, a rejection of higher education for women, and shunning of contraception in favor of trying to have as many children as humanly possible."

The Duggar parents raise their children by many of these tenets: they advocate for not using birth control — Jim Bob has stated he believes his wife's brief time on birth control caused her to miscarry — have decided to homeschool all their children, prohibit dating (and kissing and unchaperoned interactions with romantic prospects) before marriage, and require extreme modesty in dress at all times.

Why are the Duggars in the news?

On May 19, 2015, InTouch Weekly magazine reported that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s oldest son, Josh, now 27, had been named in a prior sexual assault probe involving a minor. On May 21, InTouch revealed that Josh had been investigated for molesting at least five underage girls beginning in 2002, when he was around 14.

InTouch obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request a sealed 2006 police report that detailed the accusations against Josh Duggar. Here are a few key points:

In March 2002, Jim Bob Duggar was told by a minor that Josh had been fondling her while she was sleeping. The report says 14-year-old Josh admitted to this in July 2002.

In March 2003 Josh was again accused of fondling "several" minors, "often when they slept, but at times when they were awake," according to InTouch.

Jim Bob informed the elders of his church, who decided Josh would be sent to a program that "consisted of hard physical work and counseling." But Michelle Duggar later told police the program "was not really a training center" and instead was "a guy they know in Little Rock that is remodeling a building."

After Josh returned home, Jim Bob and several church elders took him to meet with an Arkansas state trooper named Jim Hutchens, who gave him a "very stern talk" but did not pursue any official course of action. (Hutchens is currently serving a 56-year prison sentence on child pornography charges.) The Duggars also spoke about the incidents with a family friend, who then wrote down details in a letter and put it in a book, which was then lent to another member of the Duggars' church. That letter is thought to be how people outside the Duggars' congregation learned of the sexual abuse charges.

In 2006, before a planned appearance by the Duggar family on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the studio received an email from an unnamed source explaining the accusations against Josh and saying the parents had been "hiding this secret for a long time." (It's unconfirmed whether this source was the one who found the letter.) The studio sent the letter to the Department of Human Services, and a police investigation was launched. When police asked Jim Bob to bring in Josh for an interview, he refused and attempted to hire a lawyer.

On May 21, the same day InTouch publishes the police report, Josh Duggar appears to confirm the incidents of molestation in a statement on Facebook, saying both he and "those affected by [his] actions" had received counseling.

How did the Duggar family respond?

In a statement on the Duggar family’s official Facebook page, Josh Duggar apologized for his actions. "Twelve years ago, as a young teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends," he wrote.

Josh’s parents also published a statement, as did his wife, Anna. Anna’s statement says Josh told her about his "past teenage mistakes," as she phrases it, two years before they got engaged. She continues, "[W]hen Josh asked me to marry him... I was able to say, 'Yes' knowing who Josh really is — someone who had gone down a wrong path and had humbled himself before God and those whom he had offended."

Josh has also resigned from his position as the executive director of the nonprofit lobbying arm of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group based in Washington, DC, that is known for lobbying against LBGT rights, abortion rights, divorce, and stem-cell research, among other causes. Josh and Anna's official website has also been taken down.

How did TLC respond?

Slowly.

Due to an unfortunate scheduling coincidence, the network had planned to air a marathon of 19 Kids and Counting right around the time Josh Duggar’s admission came out.

As Vox’s Margarita Noriega wrote: "Only a handful of hours passed between the time the Duggar family … posted on Facebook an admission that Josh Duggar sexually molested several underage girls in a series of incidents during the early 2000s, and when the network ran a marathon of shows starring Josh Duggar himself."

The network later replaced a bloc of episodes of the show that Friday afternoon, and stated via Facebook Friday afternoon that it had decided to pull all episodes of 19 Kids from the air. "We are deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time," the statement read.

The Duggars have also been removed from the list of TLC reality stars slated to appear at an upcoming network "block party" event in Philadelphia, according to CNN.

How did the public respond?

Some have been vocal in their continuing support for the Duggars, including former Arkansas Governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Huckabee posted a statement on his Facebook page, declaring that he and his wife "love Jim Bob and Michelle and their entire family" and saying "[t]hose who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins [sic] in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst."

Others have examined the circumstances under which a situation like this could occur. The blog Patheos points to the failure at various points of the Duggar parents, church elders, and law enforcement officials to take action in light of evidence of abuse. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern expresses a degree of sympathy for Josh Duggar, writing, "Josh may be a monster — but as 19 Kids and Counting demonstrates, his path to depravity was lighted by the twisted beliefs of his parents."

Still others, including bloggers for Time and the Denver Post, have been unequivocal in calling for TLC to cancel the show, and a petition started Thursday by PoliticusUSA with the same goal as of Tuesday morning had more than 20,000 signatures.

The family has also earned enemies over the years due to its anti-LGBT activism. As Salon’s Joanna Rothkopf points out, Michelle Duggar last August lent her voice to robocalls in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to urge citizens to oppose an anti-discrimination law that would, among other things, allow trans people to use public restrooms.

In the recording, Michelle Duggar says, "I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls."

Is this the only scandal involving TLC reality stars?

No. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which ran for four seasons between August 2012 and August 2014, was also plagued by a high-profile sexual abuse scandal.

The show, which followed a child beauty pageant contestant in Georgia and her family, was canceled after reports claimed family matriarch June Shannon was dating a convicted child molester. The reports were later confirmed. Before the allegations were made public, an entire season of Honey Boo Boo was filmed and edited. TLC has no plans to air that season, however.

June Shannon has expressed displeasure that TLC has not as yet canceled 19 Kids, calling the cancellation of her own show "blatantly unfair" by contrast and suggesting she may pursue a lawsuit for the "hundreds of thousands of dollars" she lost as a result.

The show Jon & Kate Plus 8, which was also about a couple with a lot of children (including sextuplets), also met a rather ignominious end, though that controversy now seems quaint by comparison. In May 2009, Us Weekly reported that Jon Gosselin had been having an affair with a 23-year-old, which eventually led to his divorce from Kate after 10 years of marriage and a long, highly publicized, contentious custody battle over their eight children.

The schadenfreude that drives much of the conversation in the wake of a reality show scandal is closely related to the voyeuristic thrill that makes those shows so popular in the first place. And as more reality shows hit the airwaves, producers have to find new ways of distinguishing them from what came before, which occasionally means deliberately courting controversy.

As Jennifer Pozner writes in the introduction to her book Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV:

TV execs believe that the more they bait advocacy groups like NOW, the NAACP, and GLAAD, the more controversy a show will generate. Offensiveness = hype = increased eyeballs for advertisers and cash networks, making outrageous bigotry less a by-product of reality TV than its blueprint.

So will Josh Duggar face prosecution? How about his parents?

It seems very unlikely. Between Jim Bob Duggar waiting to inform authorities of the incidences of molestation for more than a year after first learning about them and state trooper Jim Hutchens failing to take action on the information, by the time police began their investigation they believed the three-year statute of limitations had been reached. (Though as Benjamin N. Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton points out to MSNBC, three years is the civil statute; the criminal statute is much longer.)

According to the Washington Post, Arkansas Judge Stacey Zimmerman (who was appointed by Mike Huckabee to two different committees) on Thursday ordered the 2006 police report expunged at the request of one of the victims (though it can still be seen via InTouch).

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are likewise unlikely to face criminal charges. Arkansas criminal defense attorney Jason Files told Hollywood Life that because Jim Bob was not a "mandatory reporter" — which are social workers, teachers, medical professionals, or other individuals required by their profession to report a crime — "he was under no legal obligation to report a suspected crime."

Tre' Kitchens, an attorney with the Little Rock–based Brad Hendricks Law Firm, concurs. "I don’t think the parents would be considered mandatory reporters by any prosecutor, even if they homeschool," he told Vox via email. "They are parents first. I think the Duggar family will not face criminal prosecution, investigation from DHS, or civil liability."

The only place where the Duggars will be charged, then, is the court of public opinion, as so often happens with celebrity scandals. And there — facing the loss of their reality show and perhaps their political influence — they may face some consequences.