Michelle Duggar Defends Smearing Transgender People As Pedophiles: It's 'Just Common Sense'

[Panich52]

Too bad she doesn't appear to possess that faculty.

Think Progress

During Wednesday night’s interview with Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar about their son Josh’s history of molesting his younger sisters, Fox News’ Megyn Kelley pressed the conservative couple to justify their advocacy against LGBT equality. Specifically, she asked Michelle about her robocalls against Fayetteville’s LGBT ordinance, in which she smeared transgender people as a threat to the safety of women and children. “How could you unfairly… compare transgender people to child molesters, suggest they are child molesters, knowing what you know about Josh?”

Michelle doubled down on her comments, erasing the very experience of transgender people’s identities by saying, “I think that protecting young girls and not allowing young men and men in general to go into a girls’ locker room is just common sense.”

Kelley insisted, “But this is different because you injected child molestation into it.” Jim Bob interrupted to clarify that Michelle said “pedophile,” which requires the perpetrator to be of a certain age, but Josh was younger — “a child preying on a child,” not a pedophile — so it’s not a fair comparison. Michelle then claimed that they were the ones being victimized by these charges of hypocrisy, explaining, “This is more about — there’s an agenda, and there’s people that are purposing to try to bring things out and twisting them to hurt and slander.”

. ...

What Michelle actually said last summer was that Fayetteville’s nondiscrimination order was that men — “yes, I said men!” — would be allowed into “women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas, and other areas that are designated for females only.” She referred to “males with past child predator convictions” — not “pedophiles” — who might “claim they are female” to enter women’s spaces. “We should never place the preference of an adult over the safety and innocence of a child.” A transgender woman is neither a man nor somebody with a “preference,” and there has never been an incident of gender identity protections somehow enabling or protecting such predatory behavior. Since the Duggars waited well over a year to even report Josh’s behavior and because criminal charges were never filed, he has no “past child predator convictions” for his admitted past child predation.

Kelley missed an opportunity to call out another example of hypocrisy from the Duggars’ past public statements. In 2002, when Jim Bob was running for U.S. Senate, he actually argued that rape and incest “represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.” ...

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http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/06/04/3666054/duggar-interview-transgender/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elqTrack=true&elqTrackId=275d774128ae433595b488a4f45b039b&elqaid=25743&elqat=1

[Aristus]

1. Sorry...

I'm not taking lessons in common sense from a woman who covered up her son's history of incestuous child-molestation, and has enough children to start her own congressional district...

[calimary]

3. No kidding. We have to be very keenly aware of that phrase "common sense."

Or, sometimes it's just "commonsense" as though it was a one-word label or slogan or some manufactured meme. "Common sense" is a phrase that's flung around, like poo, among the wrong-wingers and assorted CONS, in a sneaky, subtle, below-the-radar attempt to make the rest of us think that whatever they're hailing as "common sense" is just that. More often than not, it's anything but "common sense." The bad guys and baggers and other extremists like to ascribe "common sense" to all their cockamamie "beliefs," like trickle-down, the "I'm not a scientist" crap to try to deflect from and otherwise excuse climate change denial, and their constant lament about "punishing success" (rick perry used that just yesterday - DON'T BE FOOLED!!! It's code for the CONservatives' hard-on to keep lowering taxes for the rich).

Whenever they say "common sense," BEWARE. That's a signal that they're trying to put one over on you.

[hollysmom]

7. for 3 years -oh, they did something right away, but obviously that didn't work.

and now Sarah Palin has jumped in with both left feet in her mouth. well, it is a big mouth.

[underpants]

9. Common sense tells me that it's a Fallopian tube not a clown car

Line stolen from someone here at DU

[misterhighwasted]

2. Clearly, The Only Way to Fight Knowledge is With Ignorance

Go Away.

[Initech]

4. Oh my god could these people be any more clueless???

The hypocrisy is strong with them, and if I recall, Jesus hated hypocrites. I wish they would go away.

[MiniMe]

5. Being gay, or transgendered has nothing to do with if you are a pedophile or now

Or is she trying to tell us Josh is gay or transgendered? Since Josh is apparently attracted by young girls.

[hamsterjill]

6. Lisa Bloom's phrase of "willfully ignorant" applies

I'm not a particular fan of Lisa Bloom, but she nailed it on CNN when she called the Duggars "willfully ignorant".

These people are completely out of touch with normal, ordinary life in America. They live in a bubble that they've created and refuse to emerge from. It's really sad that there are still people trying to defend this situation.

It is not defensible!

[joeybee12]

8. Oh the irony, a woman who has no common sense talking about common sense...

These Duggars are reprehensible.