What kind of morality is quick to forgive predatory behavior against children but deeply troubled by consensual activity between adults?
As I’ve said for years, the way that congregations invariably rally to the support of Pastor Bubba when it is learned that he has been raping their children gives the lie to the claim that religion promotes morality.
It’s more complicated than that, however. Most of the people now defending Josh Duggar disapprove of same-sex relationships, sex between unmarried heterosexuals, and people who rape their children. But their need to belong to, and defend, their club — cult, more accurately — is stronger than their disapproval; an attack against their club is personal, an assault upon their identity and worth and value as human beings. To a great many of the damaged people sitting in the pews, unkind words about poor ol’ Josh are heard as an existential threat to themselves.