This evening I listened to Megyn Kelly\u2019s interview with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar<\/a>. I\u2019ve written a number of posts about the Duggar situation over the past two weeks, including What You Need to Know about the Josh Duggar Police Report<\/a>, What Did Josh\u2019s Counseling Look Like?<\/a>, and Why Josh Duggar\u2019s \u201cTeenage Mistakes\u201d Matter<\/a>. As\u00a0longtime<\/a> critic<\/a> of the Duggars and as someone who had a similar upbringing, and\u00a0this entire situation has weighed heavily on me. Today\u00a0Jim Bob and Michelle spoke publicly about the situation. I want to touch on\u00a0some of the highlights.<\/p>\n While I have so far tried to respect the privacy of Josh\u2019s victims, Jim Bob and Michelle stated publicly in their interview today that four\u00a0of Josh\u2019s victims were his younger sisters. In light of this admission, I no longer be\u00a0using rhetoric like \u201cfive girls in two families\u201d to conceal the fact that four of his five victims were his sisters.<\/p>\n I would be remiss if I did not begin by noting\u00a0that\u00a0Jim Bob and Michelle\u00a0described Josh\u2019s sexual molestation of young girls as \u201cinappropriate touching\u201d throughout their interview and reminded viewers\u00a0over and over and over again that Josh came to them\u2014in tears<\/em>\u2014and confessed what he had done. [A less-redacted police report<\/a> confirms that it was Josh, not the girls, who went to Jim Bob and Michelle about his actions.] If I were to sum up the interview in one word, that word would be minimize<\/em>.<\/p>\n On that note, I am going\u00a0to quote from the interview, offer some response, and then draw out some overall themes. I will not be covering the entire interview (such as the section on how this is actually all about Christian persecution). Instead, I want to focus on four things: the minimizing of what happened, the denying of responsibility, the obfuscation regarding who counseled Josh, and treating of Josh\u2019s crimes as a sexual sin\u00a0rather than a psychological issue in need of professional treatment.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with this:<\/p>\n \u201cHe said he was just curious about girls.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Josh\u2019s victims were prepubescent (see this picture of the Duggar children from 2002<\/a>). Jim Bob and Michelle should have been able to recognize, immediately, that this was more than just being \u201ccurious about girls,\u201d but there is no indication that they even questioned his assertion.\u00a0Look, most teenage boys are \u201ccurious about girls,\u201d but most teenage boys would be appalled at the idea of sexually touching\u00a0their prepubescent kid sisters<\/em>. This is not \u201cjust curious about girls\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cThey [the girls]\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0even know he had done it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNone of them were aware of Josh\u2019s wrongdoings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe girls, we talked to them, and they didn\u2019t know anything had happened.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, I\u2019m wondering. The date rape drug. No biggie, right? Because if the victim doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s happening, what\u2019s the big deal? Obviously this suggestion is abhorrent, but that is essentially what\u00a0Jim Bob and Michelle are doing\u00a0here. It\u2019s a way of minimizing what Josh did. It\u2019s a way of arguing that he didn\u2019t actually do any harm<\/em> even though he was in fact sexually molesting prepubescent girls.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we\u2019ve talked to other parents and different ones since then, a lot of families have said that they\u2019ve had similar things happen in their families.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n More minimizing.\u00a0Who responds to revelations of sibling-on-sibling sexual abuse among their children with\u00a0\u201cthis happens in lots of families\u201d? While it\u2019s true that child sexual abuse is frighteningly common, Jim Bob and Michelle\u2019s pointing this out\u00a0in the context of this interview\u00a0reads as yet one more attempt to minimize what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though this was a very bad situation, as we\u2019ve talked to other families who have had, you know, other things happen, a lot of their stories were even worse.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, you know.\u00a0Look over there, worse things happened over there!<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a couple more times that he came and told us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again with the focus on Josh\u2019s confessions. Did they consider that perhaps Josh\u2019s confessions were a cry for help? He was failing to stop himself from molesting his little sisters, and he knew it. He must have wanted to stop or he wouldn\u2019t have kept going\u00a0to his parents about it. And yet, Jim Bob and Michelle let him stay in the situation\u00a0for a full year before taking any real steps to get him help (and even then, the steps they took did not involve professional counseling or treatment).<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not rape or anything like that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I mean it wasn\u2019t that<\/em>\u00a0bad. Not really<\/em>. Do you see what I mean about the\u00a0minimizing?!<\/p>\n This was like touching somebody over their clothes, there were a couple instances where he\u00a0touched them\u00a0under their clothes, but it was like a few seconds, and then he came to us and was crying and told us what happened.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Enough with the minimizing already! If Jim Bob and Michelle were this quick to minimize Josh\u2019s crimes at the time, it\u2019s no wonder they didn\u2019t seep professional treatment for him!<\/p>\n \u201cAs parents, you\u2019re not mandatory reporters. The law allows for parents to do what they think is best for their child.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ahem.\u00a0Allow me to quote InTouch<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201c[T]he Washington County Sheriff\u2019s document makes it clear that despite Josh\u2019s chilling confessions the Duggars waited at least 16 months before contacting authorities about the molestations, even though the behavior was continuing and growing worse. During that period they did not get professional counseling for Josh or his victims. Legal experts tell\u00a0In Touch<\/span>\u00a0that Jim Bob and Michelle could have faced six years in prison for their inaction, if the statute of limitations had not expired.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Now allow me to quote from the Arkansas Code<\/a>:<\/p>\n 5-27-221. Permitting abuse of a minor.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n (a)<\/b>\u00a0A person commits the offense of permitting abuse of a minor if, being a parent, guardian, or person legally charged with the care or custody of a minor, he or she recklessly fails to take action to prevent the abuse of a minor.<\/em><\/p>\n (b)<\/b>\u00a0It is a defense to a prosecution for the offense of permitting abuse of a minor if the parent, guardian, or person legally charged with the care or custody of the minor takes immediate steps to end the abuse of the minor, including prompt notification of a medical or law enforcement authority, upon first knowing or having good reason to know that abuse has occurred.<\/em><\/p>\n So no, that\u2019s wrong<\/em>. Parents who do not report sexual abuse to the authorities can be charged with a crime and sentenced to jail time.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t really understand, though, what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey weren\u2019t even aware.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey probably didn\u2019t even understand it was improper touch.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And now we\u2019re back to this again! This really is justifying everything I\u2019ve suspected\u00a0about the lack of proper sex education in the Duggar household. If the girls didn\u2019t know that their significantly older brother putting his hands up their skirts and under their clothing was \u201cimproper touch,\u201d they\u2019d been given woefully little information\u00a0(read: none) to protect themselves from such abuse or mistreatment.<\/p>\n While Josh initially molested his sisters while they slept, he eventually began molesting them while they were awake, too. Did the family value personal space so little that the girls seriously had no idea this this was inappropriate?<\/p>\n \u201cWe pulled him out [of the home], and he went through working with that man.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What man, pray?<\/p>\n \u201cThis man really reached his heart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cThis man\u201d is convenient shorthand for \u201cI don\u2019t want to tell you who.\u201d<\/p>\n He was running a little training center in Little Rock Arkansas. And under the roof of that training center, you had Little\u00a0Rock police department on one side, and you had\u00a0a prison ministry on the other. And he said Josh would come down there and actually do some construction work with him and he would counsel him and work with him and hopefully get him straightened out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Did this training center have a name? Presumably it would have, but Jim Bob seems very interested in not mentioning it. Hmm. This is a good bit of information, though\u2014the stuff about the police department, and a prison ministry. I wonder if the google might be any help . . . oh, here we go!<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGothard\u2019s presence here [in Little Rock] can be tracked to his friendship with former Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey, whose idea it was for Gothard to create a facility in Little Rock<\/strong> to promote faith-based products. . . .\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n \u201cDailey said he\u2019d called Gothard to get an update of what was happening with the training center. The training center. . . employs seven people, director R.T. Spivey said. It serves the chaplains in the IBLP\u2019s PAL prison program<\/strong>. At one time, the training center operated the \u201cIntegrity Construction Institute\u201d for young men<\/strong>, but that program has moved to Alpena.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIn 2002, the Little Rock Police Department downtown patrol and special operation division<\/strong> moved into 12,000 square feet of renovated space on the ground floor of the old hospital. Gothard paid for its renovation and leases the space to the city for $1 a year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Huh.\u00a0Strange coincidence. At the time Josh Duggar was sent away, Bill Gothard, founder and head of the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and the\u00a0Advanced Training Institute (ATI), operated\u00a0\u201ctraining center\u201d in Little Rock. This training center ran\u00a0a prison ministry, leased some of the building to the police department, and maintained\u00a0something called \u201cIntegrity Construction Institute\u201d for young men. [The center would have been run by a Gothard-appointed local director.] Why, I wonder, is Jim Bob so loathe to mention the fact that it was an ATI training center?<\/p>\n Oh right. It\u2019s probably because last year Gothard was forced to step down<\/a> after it came to light that he had sexually harassed and molested over thirty teenage and young women<\/a>\u00a0working at his facilities, and that the IBLP\u00a0board had known about this and covered for him for decades. Oops<\/em>. If Jim Bob isn\u2019t willing to be forthright about the fact that Josh was counseled\u00a0through a ministry run by an active sex offender, I\u2019m really not sure why I should assume he\u2019s being forthright in the rest of his statements.<\/p>\n