Welcome back.
Lately, America's douchebags have been melting down
over bullshit culture wars, from harassing
teachers for teaching history to harassing
kids for selling cookies.
There's a nationwide report out there
saying that some adults are arguing
with Girl Scouts on the job.
REPORTER: People get upset at the girls for the false claim
that cookie sales fund Planned Parenthood.
He proceeded to tell us that most of the time, the abortions
are little girls.
REPORTER: He then proceeded to repeat the phrase, am I wrong?
Am I wrong?
Over and over again as he slowly backed away
and his voice got fainter and fainter.
America's obsession with family values is nothing new,
and for a long time, no family more
exemplified traditional values than TLC's The Duggars.
MICHELLE DUGGAR: This is the story of my family.
That's me.
I'm Michelle.
Here's Jim Bob, my wonderful husband.
And our children, 17 in all, and I delivered every one of them.
We have very conservative values.
MICHELLE DUGGAR: We have some fast meals that we can pull
together in, like, 15 minutes.
One of our favorites is tater tot casserole.
You can't be against abortion but for that casserole.
When made properly, it aborts people.
So clearly, they're not making it properly.
The cartoonishly quirky Duggar family consistently
brought in millions of viewers, and their fame went
even beyond TLC reality TV.
In fact, they also appeared on actual shows on real networks.
But over the years, we started learning more about the darker
side of the Duggars.
Former reality TV star Josh Duggar has been found guilty
on child pornography charges.
Duggar was known for starring in 19 Kids and Counting on TLC.
The show was canceled in 2015, after it
was revealed he had molested several girls,
including four of his sisters.
What the actual [BLEEP].
These people spent almost 20 years
on TV as a bastion of wholesome family entertainment.
What is wrong with us?
TLC didn't officially part ways with the Duggars
until last year, six years after we first learned about Josh
Duggar's abusive history.
Duggar now faces up to 40 years in prison.
Or hopefully, 40 years and counting.
But the Duggars are just the tip of the iceberg
of exploitation and abuse.
They seem to adhere to something called
Christian Patriarchy, also known as the Quiverfull movement.
It's basically a sect of Christianity that
uses the Bible to subjugate women,
rather than using the Bible as it was originally intended,
as a surface to roll joints on.
In Quiverfull, the only birth control is God,
and that guy is the spiritual equivalent of a condom
with holes poked in it.
MICHELLE DUGGAR: We had our first child
four years into marriage.
And at that point, we decided that we wanted
to allow God to give us all the blessings he wanted
to give us at that point.
Quiverfull is a movement largely
of conservative Christians who believe that all or most forms
of contraception are wrong.
Many Quiverfull adherents believe they're building
a literal army for God, though I'm pretty sure God's going
to look down on that sea of prairie
dresses and khakis and spell out [BLEEP]
nerds in a burning bush.
The Quiverfull movement promotes a ban on dating,
encourages home schooling, rejects
higher education for women, and promotes
extreme modesty in dress.
Grandma, what is Joy doing right now?
Why is her hand [INAUDIBLE]?
Um, she's covering up the immodest dress.
If we're walking past a girl that is immodestly dressed,
they'll call out Nike, and all the boys
will immediately put their heads down and just walk past.
How did anyone think this sexist purity
bullshit was entertainment?
Also, instead of Nike, they should have said Adidas.
A cooler kid on my block told me it stands
for all day I dream about sex.
In addition to being the poster children for having too
many children, the Duggars appear to also be
a part of something much worse.
IBLP is a fundamentalist sect of Christianity.
Their children-- the Duggar children--
were home schooled using the organization's
faith-based curriculum.
Now, former members of this organization
say that it is a cult.
In other words, it's Scientology
for basic cable celebrities.
And I have been invited to join neither.
The Institute in Basic Life Principles, or IBLP,
is a religious organization that adheres to Quiverfull beliefs.
It was created by Bill Gothard, who resigned in 2014
after being accused of sexually harassing members
and failing to report child abuse cases.
IBLP teaches that God gives husbands an umbrella
of authority over their wives.
It's a figurative umbrella, but it also
keeps you from getting wet.
Scientifically, a dry log flume is the best
way to show a dry vagina.
Look, I don't make the rules.
I just follow them.
The IBLP teaches women from a very young age
that they are to be submissive in all things,
from never correcting men when they're
wrong to horrifyingly being absolutely
submissive to their husbands with sex.
It's a tacit sanctioning of spousal rape,
or, in Duggar-ese--
REPORTER: Michelle says a friend once told her, even when you're
tired at night from taking care of kids,
be available for your husband's need for intimacy.
Not just available, but be joyfully available.
Ugh, this is so [BLEEP] gross.
The only time I feel joyfully available
is when I'm at a party, and they have sliders.
That was at a funeral.
I don't know who for, but folks were real sad.
Gothard also teaches that in cases recognized as abuse
or assault, if a woman didn't dress modestly
or cry out to God, she's just as guilty of rape
as her assailant.
One member even said his children,
if they were assaulted, they had to confess
what they did to bring it on, to which I say, [BLEEP] you.
These people make me hope there is a hell, just so these
[BLEEP] can burn in it.
So disturbing.
Bottom line, saying the Duggars and their beliefs
are just wholesome family values is like saying the Manson
family was just a ragtag crew of aspiring Los Angeles musicians.
Which, incidentally, is also the logline of Meet the Mansons,
a new show I'm executive producing for HBO Max.
For over a decade, families like the Duggars
have been put on television, both as a fond throwback
to a simpler time and as a circus for us to laugh at.
But while it's easy to dismiss some of their beliefs
as just quirky and harmless, the sinister truth
is that these shows promote a belief system
that abuses women and children.
One former IBLP member even claimed
a woman refused treatment for breast cancer
because she saw the disease as God saving
her from her abusive husband.
Do you know how [BLEEP] bad things need to be for that
to be your escape plan?
It is downright dangerous to keep putting families
like these on TV without also providing context
for their extremist beliefs, especially when it comes
to that tater tot casserole.
We'll be right back.