No defense can or should be offered for Josh Duggar, the oldest child in the cable series “19 Kids and Counting,” for his molestation of several girls more than a decade ago. From all reports, he received a form of counseling for the misconduct, has admitted his indiscretions and is now married with a family.
The TLC cable network has taken the reality show, in which the living-elsewhere Duggar was a minor character, off the air, retailers have said they would pull their ads, and a streaming video service has removed the show from its listings.
Meanwhile, network television and cable networks offer daily fare in which foul language is commonplace, couples routinely live together without marriage, nudity is widely portrayed, family values are sneered at, religion is belittled and violence is rampant.
The same people who call the Duggar family hypocrites for promoting family values while keeping their son’s actions to themselves see no problem with producing movies and television that promote deviancy.
In just one instance, “Nip/Tuck” and “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy, whose fictional shows bash traditional values, once mentioned how he hoped his legacy had made it “possible for somebody on broadcast television to do [an anal sex] scene in three years.”