Although I agree the show should be cancelled, it’s just going to make the children even more isolated.
At least Michelle isn’t popping out any more babies, so the days of the girls charting their mother’s menstrual cycle are over for good. Also, there won’t be any more blanket training.
Josh was a young teen when this occurred. The father reported it to the police. Since then Josh has had no further known issues.
Its pretty silly to label a young teen a pedo for being curious about girls. What he did was wrong and illegal. But it in no way reflects on his behavior as an adult. He was a curious and horny teen with hormones running wild. Just like any other horny young boy who gets his first erection. Their dick gets hard when the wind blows.
He lived in a huge family. He would have been caught if he had gone into their bedrooms and continued touching the girls. AFAIK theres been no further incidents since it was reported to the police.
TLC must have known.
Seriously? It’s okay that he molested unaware young girls (some of whom were his SISTERS?) because he was a “horny young boy”?
And he gets to get away with it because he apologized?
Yeah, no. He’s a sexual abuser. Maybe if they’d caught him playing doctor with willing girls, that argument might fly. But fondling/groping them while they were asleep is a hell of a lot more than " a horny young boy." That’s a sexual predator.
I hope he gets what’s coming to him. Just being “sorry” isn’t enough when you sit on the whole thing for years before finally owning up to it. That’s not “sorry,” it’s “sorry I got caught.”
His father did not report it to “the police,” he brought Josh to a family friend who was in the force and is now doing a 56 year sentence for child pornography.
So yeah. Reporting it to the police meant, brought him to a trusted pedophile.
I was a curious and horny teen and molested zero children. You?
It is not normal behavior sneak into your sister’s bedroom and fondle their genitals when they are asleep. Or to attempt to touch a sibling’s genitals when near them. This went on for months. Jim Bob did NOT report the behavior to the police until apparently at least a year after it happened. For all we know it did happen again. We know that Duggars did pretty much nothing to help protect their daughters from their brother’s abuse.
They’re shitty parents. He’s a man with serious issues that would make most people avoid allowing their kids near him unsupervised. We are under no obligation to give into Duggar delusions about their own greatness or fail to point out where they have failed miserably.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours was a common childhood game. Kids are inquisitive. Puberty stirs up a lot of mixed up feelings.
It’s true most young boys don’t fondle their sisters. But it does happen. Thankfully in most cases that’s all there is too it. Parents have to use their best judgement in correcting the problem.
I can’t believe people can’t see the difference in a young boy going through puberty and a sexually deviant adult. The whole point of parenting is to instruct and correct behavior. So that their kids grow up to be responsible adults.
Are people suggesting a young boy is already beyond help? Lets label a kid a pedo?
Since when is it common for young teenage boys to pounce on their own sisters – especially their very, very young sisters – out of sexual frustration and confusion?? Take a look at the police report…this went way beyond just peeking at each others’ private parts.
He was fourteen and the girl was five.
Your argument is invalid.
There’s a big difference between “I’ll show you mine and you show me yours” (which is still pretty sick when we’re talking about a fourteen-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister) and “I’ll fondle yours while you’re asleep and you don’t get to protest.”
Pedo: Normal 14-year-old boys don’t get sexually aroused by little kids. So yeah, pedo. Sexual predator, absolutely. It’s the definition of sexual predator: he took advantage of another person without consent for his own sexual satisfaction.
If this behavior had continued then I’d agree Josh is a sexual deviant. But there’s no indication that any further incidents occurred after he talked with the state police. A family that big has no secrets. There’s no way he could have continued without his brothers and sisters telling their dad.
The kid made a mistake. He was counseled and punished. Just like a parent does with any problem. They try to get help and correct the behavior so the kid matures into a responsible adult. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. But there’s no indication this abhorrent behavior continued into his adult life.
He wasn’t counseled and he wasn’t punished. The “counseling” he received was to be sent to a Gothard approved program where he prayed, and did construction work. Gothard himself is a sexual predator. His “punishment” was to be taken to a friend of the family who is a police officer, for stern talking to. That same officer is now serving a 56 year prison sentence for child pornography.
The show has been pulled by TLC.
Kids get into a lot of abhorrent anti-social behavior. Deliberating injuring the family pet, arson, drugs, aggression against siblings (with significant injury) and sexual stuff. We have a completely different set of laws and courts for juveniles. Because society recognizes there is a strong chance the child’s abhorrent behavior can be corrected.
We don’t prejudge an adult by a troubled childhood. We can’t just throw people away like that. There’s always a good chance that with counseling a troubled kid can become a responsible adult.
I would have recommended professional counseling for Josh. But he wasn’t my child. It wasn’t my choice to make.
That nasty prick was more concerned about getting right with God than the damage he did to his sisters. A real character defect of fundies - they think more about their eternal soul than those around them.
What about his victims? They’ll live with the effects for the rest of their lives. But hey, it’s all fine and dandy because he went to church camp and “prayed” away the problem.
The overall lack of concern for the victims tells me a lot about how society views victims of sexual abuse. I doubt the people making excuses for Josh would feel the same way if it was their own daughter who was molested.
What about the girls? I see a lot about “Josh apologized” and “Josh feels bad about what he did” but what about the five girls that he molested? Are they just supposed to forgive him because he apologized? He covered it up for years. As I said before: he’s not sorry, he’s sorry he got caught.
These girls were sexually assaulted, by someone who they were supposed to be able to trust, and it doesn’t seem like anybody in that family gives much of a damn about it. I don’t give a damn about Josh’s future–he should have thought about that before he groped his sisters. What I care about is what’s being done to help the five girls cope with what happened to them–and not “counseling” that tells them that it’s somehow their fault and that they “defrauded” their brother.
I’m not anti-Christian. I have Christian friends. I’m married to a devout Christian. But the particular corners of fundamentalist Christianity that are willing to overlook something like this and let young girls somehow feel wrong if they don’t forgive their predator because he’s “sorry” disgust me.
We’re not throwing him away. He and his family are just finally being ushered off our television screens and newspaper covers. It’s about time. Maybe they’ll finally do something besides have large families, indoctrinate their kids with sexist religious fanaticism and pick on gay people. The Duggar girls might actually be able to get a decent education, perhaps even become the real midwives or skilled musicians or early childhood education teachers they would like to be.
They might even get real help to cope with their bro’s abuse from trained professionals instead of moronic religious idiots who tell them the abuse was all their own fault. This could be the best thing that ever happened to the family.
An admitted child molester as Executive Director of the Family Research Council’s lobbying arm. Now, that’s something right there.
This cute differs in two important respects from your original claim, which I will reproduce here as a reminder.
Here are the two:
(1) It’s a fallacy to impute to a “follower,” each and every position of the person or group he follows. I, for example, am Roman Catholic, but I don’t support each and every position the Church offers up for public consumption. So your cite purports to show what Gothard advises or teaches, not what JimBob and Michelle believe.
(2) With respect to what JimBob and Michelle have said, I agree such statements can be used to shows what they believe…but their statement doesn’t seem to be about sexual assault. It’s a more general statement about the advisability of modest dress. Sexual assault is not about sexual desire; it’s about power. They could certainly believe that modest dress for women is desirable and at the same time not condemn victims of sexual assault for being at fault.
Do you have any cite for the claim you made, or not"
Go lawyer it up somewhere else, Bricker. It’s reasonable to believe the Duggar’s beliefs are consistent with the faith they evangelize.