James Dobson's Family Research Council (FRC) has made the long-debunked claim that gays molest kids at higher rates than straights do.

("Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation," http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/HTML/facts_molestation.html)


If that bogus assertion wasn't bad enough, the FRC has now shown it true colors with its tepid response to Josh Duggar's admission of being a child molester. (Spoiler Alert: FCR doesn't say a peep about Duggar's actual molestation activities or condemn him for them):

"The Family Research Council’s Strange Statement On Josh Duggar’s Child Molestation Confession”

by Zack Ford
22 May 2015
"Think Progress”

“For the past few years, Josh Duggar, eldest son of the 19 in the Duggar clan, has been the face of the Family Research Council (FRC) at rallies against LGBT equality across the country. As executive director of FRC Action, the organization’s political arm, he helped fundraise for the organization, hobnob with Republican presidential contenders, and promote its anti-LGBT talking points, including claiming that his lesbian aunt 'chooses' her 'lifestyle' and that LGBT people are a threat to children.

“But Duggar just resigned from FRC after admitting to allegations that he molested several young girls as a teenager, including some of his sisters. Details of the police report, only filed by patriarch Jim Bob Duggar more than a year after the molestation took place, first came to light through reporting from In Touch magazine and later confirmed by TMZ. In a statement to People magazine, Josh Duggar publicly confessed to his behavior and the Duggar family also acknowledged his past mistakes on Facebook. But FRC’s official response, via President Tony Perkins, was incredibly muted.

“The FRC statement, posted only on its website’s front page (as opposed to a dedicated press release page that would be archived), simply states, 'Today Josh Duggar made the decision to resign his position as a result of previously unknown information becoming public concerning events that occurred during his teenage years. Josh believes that the situation will make it difficult for him to be effective in his current work. We believe this is the best decision for Josh and his family at this time. We will be praying for everyone involved.' The organization, committed to protecting children and families, never identifies the “concerning events” nor condemns Duggar’s behavior.

“FRC has a well-documented history of demonizing LGBT people as being a threat to children. A 2002 document called 'Homosexuality and Child Abuse,' still found on FRC’s website, claims, 'The evidence indicates that homosexual men molest boys at rates grossly disproportionate to the rates at which heterosexual men molest girls.' This claim incorrectly assumes that the men who molest boys are gay, when in fact pedophilia is not motivated by sexual orientation. Male pedophiles who molest boys might be completely heterosexual; because the children are prepubescent, sexuality does not explain the disordered behavior. In 2010, Perkins, along with Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg, complained that scientists refuse to accept that there’s 'a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.' Perkins doubled down on this claim just last year.

“Given the way FRC claims that protecting children is its motivation for most of its positions, its silence on actions that Duggar admitted to is telling. As Dan Savage tweeted Thursday night, 'If a gay dad did nothing after his son molested 5 girls… @FRCdc & @FRCAction would argue that no gays should be allowed to have kids.'“

**********


When you spot a religious zealot, it pays to look for their lurking shadow of inner fear and self-loathing.

“Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.”

--Reinhold Niebuhr



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2015 03:54PM by steve benson.

Shakespeare noticed the proclivity of people who are loudly and publicly opposed to something being very likely to be doing that thing themselves in private, with his memorable turn of phrase, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Human nature hasn't changed much :)

Oh, and screw the FRC.

Or as that modern day bard Bart Simpson says...

if you smelt it, you dealt it.

I used to listen to a US Christian radio station and Bill Dobson had a regular program, every day I think it was. I believe he retired quite a while back. I don't remember hearing about the FRC then but maybe it was a later innovation.

A Christian friend took me to a Bill Gothard seminar once. They distributed huge binders full of teachings about "purity" that I filed away and never read.

I feel bad for just accepting that these guys were some kind of qualified preacher types who knew the Bible better than the rest of us. I didn't question their teachings. However, I do not recall any blatant anti-gay statements. I have never gone along with that line of thinking and I'm sure I would have noticed it if they were emphasizing it.

I haven't kept up with FRC for a long time such that I didn't even know that Josh Duggar was the face of it now. In fact, I only know about the Duggars and their TV show from reading it here.

But look at Gothard - resigned under a cloud. Perkins - resigned under a cloud. Duggar - resigned under a cloud. And even Dobson - iirc he was accused of impropriety. I'm not sure how that turned out or if that is why he resigned. I believe he had health concerns which may have caused him to step down. If he was found innocent of the charges then I apologize for mentioning that incident. I do recall that he was in favour of corporal punishment for children, which became a huge issue. He insisted that spanking his kids hadn't done them any harm. I'm not sure if we heard from the kids.

Even though I was not closely aligned with this organization or its representatives, and even though I am a big girl now and know the world is not all sweetness and light (as I used to believe) I am still shocked at the poor records of these so-called Christian leaders with whom I somewhat brushed shoulders.

I had a vague impression at the time of not being as intense as they were about their beliefs but I didn't realize how harmful their positions were. I feel bad.

Fortunately for me perhaps, being interested in medicine from a very early age gave me a wider scope with which to view the world. As a nurse, one of the pre-eminent values is to render care without judgement. That is, don't even judge in your mind. Be completely without judgement against a person to whom you owe a duty of care. This generous attitude spilled over outside of nursing too as it becomes so second nature, I found. I believe that (hopefully) the impulse to care and the non-judgementalism were part of my DNA anyway but the nursing ideals and experience really cemented in those values.

So, I hope that if I had been associated with any group that espoused the same beliefs as Dobson, Gothard, Perkins or Duggar I would have at least left, if not spoken up in protest.

Still, it is shocking to me to see the appalling and far-reaching impact of people and beliefs that touched me even slightly. I can never get it through my head that people can be so hypocritical. Of all the things I hate most: Hypocrisy. Lying.

I am shocked every time. I never see it coming. I keep forgetting to question everything.

I wish that every survivor of assault, or any crime of the person, would get the objective professional help they need. I wish that not so many people would be influenced by these high profile leaders and groups. They must reach thousands, maybe millions, of people. And so many of their ideas are so negative, if not outright harmful.

I can't say they were my idols, not at all. Still, I spent significant time listening to their programs and beliefs. Time wasted, as it turns out.