This Josh Duggar thing is becoming complicated. I need a flow chart to keep track of his apologies and broken laws and dick behaviour, but today in the “What the Fuck Did a Duggar Do Now?” files, I am concerned with his wife.
Let’s get up to speed:
1. AshleyMadison.com is a website with the purpose of “hooking up” married persons for sexy naked time with someone NOT their spouse. Not my cuppa tea, but no judgement here because we don’t know our neighbours stories and believe me, after hearing a few tales during a gin-soaked night on a pub patio, you don’t want to.
2. Fast forward like 37 million hookups and several Costco size bottles of lube later, and AshleyMadison.com has been hacked by a group called The Impact Team – an awesome name for a small-to midsize PR firm or concrete busting company, but as it turns out are just some shitty internet hackers doing what they think is good work.
3. Next up, Josh Duggar. Duggar, confirmed molester, plaid and khakis fashion icon, and paid promoter of “Traditional Christian Family Values,” has now come forward and admitted he is among the tens of thousands of people whose information was hacked.
Well. Isn’t this just like Christmas morning if Christmas morning meant family drama, exposed lies and weakly written apologies. (Don’t tell me that’s just at my house.)
Duggar has released a formal “apology” the likes of which, if printed on soft tissue, would make great bargain-quality toilet paper. It’s not a secret I’m no fan of Josh or the Duggar family, but it’s still not cool that his data was hacked. Because that’s illegal, and banging a married person isn’t - yet. (Let’s see who wins the next election.)
There are a few extenuating circumstances that I think put Duggar’s situation under a harsher light and the first of them is a bit complex and two-fold:
1a.) Josh Duggar is a paid, public figure, who has willingly put himself in the spotlight and is compensated for doing so.
1b.) The above compensation – and it’s plentiful, no doubt – comes from speaking engagements and media appearances where he upholds, promotes, and claims to be a bastion of a specific value system which excludes and promotes discrimination of others. He openly criticizes and condemns people who do not conform or participate in his value system, done in the name of his particular brand of religion which many - millions - do not subscribe to.
2. Josh got ahead of the curve and released this apology almost immediately. He made it public and had he not, I guarantee I would not be writing about it.
A reminder: he actively campaigns against gay marriage and sexual rights/equality from a platform of hatred. Screw that guy.
Duggar released this today, on his family’s website, DuggarFamily.com:
"I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have been unfaithful to my wife.
I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him.
I have brought hurt and a reproach to my family, close friends and the fans of our show with my actions.
The last few years, while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country I was hiding my own personal failures.
As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences. I deeply regret all the hurt I have caused so many by being such a bad example.
I humbly ask for your forgiveness. Please pray for my precious wife Anna and our family during this time."
Already there is discussion of what his wife should do and the consensus is "Leave him, of course!" Speculation over what Duggar’s wife Anna may do is moot. It doesn’t matter because it’s her choice to stay or leave and a huge part (okay the “all” part) of my brain wants his “precious wife” to grab those kids and run like she’s on fire. I want her to hitch her wagon to a rock star’s tour bus and do all sorts of crazy shit like wear pants and cut her hair and pursue higher education. I want her to stage an epic public “SCREW YOU, JOSH” blow out at a local Dairy Queen so it can go viral on Facebook and I want her to cut all the crotches out of his favourite khakis and leave the bathtub running next to the room where he keeps his large screen TV and I want her to hire the meanest lawyer with a huge chip on their shoulder available.
But if she doesn’t I won’t judge her and I won’t say “She should have...,” and I won’t call her weak or stupid or anything else because she did nothing wrong. I don’t like her value system or her principles or her brand or her politics or her method of delivery but it’s likely she wouldn’t like my ideology either (primarily she-devil and heathen with some four-meat pizza holding it together ) so I’m pretty cool with us disagreeing on this one.
I will never, ever agree with her politics as long as they are what they are now. I will never judge her for not leaving her husband.
But I will continue to believe that her husband conducts himself like an absolute asshole.
Image Source: Facebook
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