Duggar Expands Anti-Gay Brand to Include Racism

Racism and homophobia shared center stage last Saturday when Josh Duggar of the TLC reality show "19 Kids and Counting" addressed a room of conservative Christians at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Raw Story reports.

"I had a friend who went and lived among headhunters and cannibals in New Guinea," Duggar said. "And so I kinda made a deal with the Lord, and I said to the Lord, 'Lord, I'll go anywhere, but I won't go to the headhunters and cannibals.' So He sent me to Washington."

As Death and Taxes points out, there hasn't been a documented case of either headhunting or cannibalism in the African nation of New Guinea since 1953.

Duggar's semi-racist comments were uncharacteristically off-message for an event focused on battling reproductive rights, employment non-discrimination and marriage equality in the name of religious freedom.
Duggar quickly got back on track.

"What we're seeing here today," he continued, "as we're looking at the discussion for 2016, our work is clear - our mission is before us. We have an administration that has taken a direct assault on us. This is not just about a disagreement. This is not just saying, 'This is our opinion, here's your opinion, let's have a discussion.'"

Later in Duggar's address, he took the opportunity to tip his hat to his fellow reality show brethren - the Benham twins, whose plans for an HGTV show were thwarted when comments by the pair about same-sex marriage and Nazi Germany surfaced.

"For those men to go out and say "we're going to stand up for what we believe." Duggar continued. "We're going to make sure that we show the love of Christ of every single person. We're going to express our beliefs and we're going to stand, even in the face of canceling or standing down or being threatened by all these bully tactics."

"We must be that courageous," he concluded, "because courage breeds courage."

Duggar is executive director of the conservative lobbying group Family Research Council (FRC) which actively lobbies against LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage and LGBT adoption, was classified in 2010 as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is considered by many to be one of the country's most fervently anti-gay organizations.

Prior to Duggar's appointment as FRC's executive director in June of 2013, there was no record of the position previously existing with the organization. It remains unclear whether the job was created for Duggar, a former used car salesman whose highest level of completed education is a high school GED, or whether Duggar's placement was part of a search for talent.