UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast
Brandy Zadrozny
The Quiverfull movement preaches that women must be subservient to all of men’s needs. It’s not impossible to see how abuse could flourish.
Since TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting first premiered in 2008, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have amazed their less fecund audience members with their ability to “extreme parent” nine girls and 10 boys. For 10 seasons, viewers—either in admiration or guilty-pleasure gawking—have watched the large brood live their lives according to evangelical Christian values, which include the total submission of women, sexual purity, homeschooling, and adherence to a particular sect known as the Quiverfull movement, which (among other principles) eschews all forms of birth control.
But just two years before the show aired, according to a police report unearthed by In Touch, the family was involved with police in an investigation of their oldest son, Josh, for the alleged molestation of at least five underage girls—including his own sisters—starting in 2002 when he was around 14. A flurry of admissions and apologies followed the news yesterday, from Josh, his parents and his wife, and Josh resigned from his position as executive director of FRC Action, the lobbying arm of the evangelical Family Research Council. TLC announced Friday it was pulling the show off the air.
For those less acquainted with Quiverfull and the reports of alleged sexual abuse inside the movement by ex-fundamentalists, the allegations were shocking, and dulled the shine on a family that seemed to be perfect. For others, the allegations and Josh’s seeming admission and apology only confirm that the patriarchal religious movement can be both a breeding ground and hiding place for this type of crime.
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