Dear Mrs. Duggar,
This is not the first time you and I have talked. In fact, I remember writing an open letter to you back in December that broached this very same topic. Now, though, things are very different. Now, it isn’t just me saying that your words are hypocritical. Your actions have proven it.
Back in November, you recorded a robocall to convince people to vote against an amendment that would have protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing and employment. This bill’s passage, you said, would allow transgender people, who you insisted were?child sex predators, to harm our children.
Now, I know that while you were falsely equating gay and transgender people with child sex predators, you sheltered one in your own home. You lied for him and continued to insist that you were protecting children the correct way, the way that others refused to do. You used the very large microphone that TLC gave you to lie to the people who supported you, to tell them that the dangers of sexual assault could be avoided by discriminating against LGBTQ people. You painted them as wolves who existed to prey on our children.
The truth, Mrs. Duggar, the truth you already knew while you made such damning and disgusting statements, is that it was never the wolves we needed to fear. It’s the wolves in sheep’s clothing. It’s the brother who sleeps in the next bed and sits next to you in church. It’s the president of the Family Research Council, who uses one face to proclaim his piety and superiority in the eyes of God and another to hide his sins. It’s the man condemning others for living a life that is their truth and hurts no one while covering lies and damaging others. It was never LGBTQ people, Mrs. Duggar. It was your son and others like him.
I wondered back in December if you had somehow missed the lessons in church about loving our fellow man and about avoiding the feelings of superiority that we use to judge others. I wondered if you and I had been to the same church, a church that taught the words of Jesus Christ, considering that you had strayed so far from the core message of love that I had learned. Now I wonder if you believed any of it at all.
Honesty and integrity, for me, were the primary lessons of Sunday school. While you professed your deep adherence to a Christian message, you seem to have forgotten that very basic and essential lesson. While you sat in judgment on others and hid your own sins, while you showed the world the face of a woman who was concerned about families and their well-being, you promoted false messages that were harmful to them. It seems you have forgotten some of the most inherent lessons of the Bible.
So here’s an online bible school lesson?that may help. I hope that you not only study it and teach it to your children, but that you call your supporters, the ones who still want to see you as the expert in family values who is being unfairly attacked by us hell-bound liberal Christians, and tell them that you were wrong. It was never about granting equal rights to LGBTQ people. It was never about same-sex couples wanting to marry or raise children. It’s not the fault of the liberal media or Democrats or proponents of gender equality.
It’s the lack of honesty and integrity by those who claim to represent Christianity that is driving people away from your party, your message, and your church.
