The "19 Kids and Counting " Duggars To Headline Values Voters Summit

[imurhuckleberry]

Last week, the Family Research Council, convenor of the annual Values Voters Summit, the biggest political event of the religious right, announced that the Duggar family (subject of the TLC series, 19 Kids and Counting) would be featured speakers at the upcoming Summit in Washington in September.

"Jim Bob, Michelle, and the kids have been outspoken ambassadors for Christian values in a secular world. Together with parents from across the country, we want to pay tribute to their commitment to faith and family in an industry and culture that so desperately need it," reads the FRC announcement.

Why is this family which apparently sees no end to its childbearing a model of Christian values? Because Michelle, mother of 19, grandmother of one, lives out the "Christian" virtues of what it means to be a woman: submissive to Jim Bob, a woman of "character," and above all else, a selfless mother whose main goal is to produce more children.

That the Duggars are being featured at the religious right's biggest political gathering is a testament to how mainstream the Duggars' lifestyle is in the right-wing evangelical world. That is the same world which has portrayed global reproductive health organizations as promoting a "culture of death," abortion, promiscuity, and the decline of the "traditional family." Frequently cited is "secular" Europe where the religious right claims that the decline of Christianity has caused a population crisis and a looming "demographic winter."

This is a world where abortion is murder, but not only that: as RD contributor Kathryn Joyce detailed in her book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, God has a divine plan for the family, and anything that deviates from that is heretical and against God's will. Mix in the pot a circus-like media structure that enables the dissemination of falsehoods that then get repeated by activists and elected officials, long-standing fundamentalist views of the United Nations as a sign of the Antichrist, and it's a recipe for fundamentalism-fueled campaign against the goals of reproductive freedom and access to safe reproductive health services.

READ more: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/2795/the_duggars_to_headline_values_voters_summit/

[bluestateguy]

1. Odds are one child will end up being gay

The odds of it are pretty good out of 19 kids.

And then the family will have to deal with that.

[JI7]

2. they will deal with it like Alan Keyes and every other wingnut with gay relatives

it wont change anything they are doing.

the now dead republican who pushed some anti gay proposition some years ago had a gay brother and gay son.

Gingrich has a lesbian sister. and Gingrich himself has led a shitty personal life. but it doesn't change the shit they preach.

they will just act like there is nothing there. just like they are STILL saying they might have more kids even after this last one born has been struggling with her health.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. The vaginal clown car express

Do each of them get 15 minutes? Even so, isn't their time about up?

[MichaelHarris]

4. Duggers

[sinkingfeeling]

5. You can understand my horror when Jim Bob ran for the US Senate in 2002.