UNITED STATES
Talking Points Memo
By SARAH POSNER | SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
On May 21, the gossip magazine In Touch published an explosive, career-crushing report about a beloved figure in the religious right: Josh Duggar, the oldest child of the ultra-conservative Christian family of TLC’s hit reality show 19 Kids and Counting, had, as a teenager, sexually abused five minor girls.
“Bombshell Duggar Police Report: Jim Bob Duggar Didn’t Report Son Josh’s Alleged Sex Offenses for More Than a Year,” blared the instantly viral online headline. The cover of the tabloid that would sell at supermarket checkouts across the country was even more lurid: “House of Horrors,” a reference to In Touch’s discovery that four of Josh’s victims were his younger sisters.
At the time of the In Touch revelations, Duggar was a 27-year-old married father of three with another on the way, and the executive director of a leading Christian right advocacy group, Family Research Council Action. He promptly admitted to acting “inexcusably” and resigned his post.
But a mystery remained at the heart of the tabloid drama. The Duggars’ explanations for how they handled their son’s confessions elided some crucial details, and Josh Duggar’s did as well. In a statement issued to People magazine just hours after the In Touch report was published, he said, “We spoke with the authorities where I confessed my wrongdoing, and my parents arranged for me and those affected by my actions to receive counseling.”
What Josh Duggar didn’t say—and what his parents and two of his sisters didn’t say in interviews with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly a few weeks later—was what, precisely, that counseling entailed. Although none of the Duggars has ever publicly identified it as such, the facility where Josh was sent in Little Rock is owned and operated by the Institute in Basic Life Principles, an insular and authoritarian evangelical homeschooling ministry whose charismatic founder, former followers say, sexually harassed female employees, blamed rape victims for provoking their attackers, and subjected young disciples to grueling physical labor for little or no pay.
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