Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee,
a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has come to
the defense of Josh Duggar.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Huckabee
scolded “blood-thirsty media” for its role in reporting the news
that Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the
Arkansas family featured in TLC's reality series 19 Kids And
Counting, had confessed to molesting young girls as a teenager
and resigned his post as executive director at the Christian
conservative Family Research Council (FRC), a group vocally opposed
to LGBT rights.
(Related: Josh
Duggar, who called LGBT people a threat to children, admits he
molested girls.)
Earlier this month, the Duggar family
endorsed Huckabee's campaign.
“Josh's actions when he was an
underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but
that doesn't mean 'unforgivable,'” Huckabee wrote. “He and his
family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the
victims and the authorities.”
“Good people make mistakes and do
regrettable and even disgusting things. The reason that the law
protects disclosure of many actions on the part of a minor is that
the society has traditionally understood something that today's
blood-thirsty media does not understand – that being a minor means
that one’s judgement is not mature. Those who have enjoyed
revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family
have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there
was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be
left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file
destroyed – not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims.”
People for the American Way's Drew
Courtney appeared on MSNBC's PoliticsNation where he pointed
out Huckabee's apparent hypocrisy.
“I do think it's fair to look at how
he has decided to respond to other issues that have come up,”
Courtney told host Al Sharpton. “He was responding with outrage
when gay and lesbian people were allowed to serve openly in the
military. … He's responded with so much outrage to marriage
equality that he's compared gay people to Nazi propagandists and
people who have sex with sheep.”
“Now he seems kind of stung by the
judgment that he's feeling or feels the Duggars have received, but
he's responded with bitterness and judgment at every step along the
way of our country's progress to legal equality for gay people. And
I hope that, frankly, he remembers this feeling next time he decides
that he should be attacking gay and lesbian families in order to
score some political points,” he added.
(Related: TLC
pulls 19 Kids And Counting in wake of Josh Duggar child
molestation claims.)