While it's a catchy term for them, I don't know if I'd ever want to call anyone a
demon... That being said, I do think the parents are disgusting human beings who created the poster family for child abuse and patriarchal Christian Right values and it makes my blood boil when people describe them as a fair, loving, albeit "traditional" family.
I
also wonder what will happen if/when (statistically) one or more of their children has to grapple (or is currently grappling, who knows) with their own queerness at some point. I do fear for whichever child or children it may be as, coming from an abusive Evangelical background myself, I know it can be terrifying (as in thinking-you're-possessed-by-demons-and-going-to-hell-terrifying) to admit even to yourself and doing so to others often has dire consequences for both their family and community relationships. Frankly, I could imagine those kids staying closeted for all their lives unless intentionally outed by someone along the way. It's just sad all around.
I've read a bit about the bill they were working against and from what I gather, it would have prevented discrimination in housing and employment based on an individual's gender identity. I'm unfamiliar with the state-by-state protections in the southern US, but from what I understand, there is no statewide protection on the basis of sexual orientation either. Does anyone know if there is a move towards a more comprehensive bill for the whole state?
The bigotry of the Duggars doesn't surprise me and I wouldn't expect any less of them. That being said, I do, however idealistic it may be, believe that such protections will eventually come to be codified into law and that it is not so much a matter of if but
when. There are too many good people working at the ground level doing too many good things for me to believe otherwise.
What really bothers me in the critical conversations about the Duggars is the relative silence surrounding the abuse of their children and the fact that they're being given a platform to preach such abuse as a healthy and loving alternative form of parenting. I know a lot of right wing Christian families who watch the show and follow them online
religiously (forgive the pun) and the children who are trapped in those families and have few rights at all, they're the ones who I worry for.
Adults on the whole have a dimension of autonomous mobility and choice to their lives that children simply do not. There are exceptions, of course, but it's worth pointing out the specific ways in which the Duggar family having a prominent voice in public discourse affects a very specific group which has few protections as a general rule and is seen in some ways as an extension of and property to be owned and controlled by the people they are financially and emotionally dependent on. This bill will
absolutely be harmful for the children in the families affected, but so is their show and on a national and even international level (yes, we get it up here too...).
I'm not trying to minimize at all the horrors of what they've done and their overall bigotry. I just wish that the effect that they are also having on children within the Christian Right would be given
greater attention more generally.
Anyway, don't mean to derail the conversation. It's an important one to have and I hope that if nothing else, their actions surrounding this bill will be part of a larger, more long lasting and ultimately successful call to take them off the air.
