Dearest Duggar Women,
The nation has had much to say to you and about you these last few weeks. Many have brought your family under fire – questioning your faith, accusing you of being hypocrites, stating you should have done this or that differently instead of the completely wrong way you did. Your story has been broadcast to a drama-craving society and instead of focusing on what truly matters we have, instead, devoured your tragedy to fill our own needy stomachs. We have used your pain for our sustenance. We have used your story as a launching pad to tear down and destroy in an attempt to make ourselves feel better.
I am so sorry.
I want to say something different to you. I want to tell you how much I admire you. In the face of senseless evil you showed both great faith and...
Lifestyle
Dear Josh,
Let me start off with telling you a little about me so that you understand why this “unimportant” person is writing you this letter. My name is Bridget Colbert. I was raised as Bridget H****. . Life was different back then. You see, I too was raised in a home with dominant Christian values. I was raised a Pentecostal. I had hair down past my bum, wore long skirts, wasn’t allowed to watch Television, wear make up, and the list goes on! As a child, I wore skirts to swim in while other girls wore swim suits. I was constantly asked by other kids “why do you wear dresses all of the time?”. It wasn’t until Junior High that I got to live a little. I tell you this to let you know I was a lot like you, your family,...
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Dear Gawker,
So, you removed that post. You know, the one about a married man (whose name we will not be mentioning) trying to score some hot gay sex on the sly, away from his wife’s prying eyes — or maybe with her blessing, we don’t know the terms of their marriage, and neither do you. You have said you’re sorry, SORT OF. You SHOULD be sorry, not that your “apologies” really count at this point, since the story is already out there on the internet, even if you’ve removed it, and you’ve likely done immeasurable damage to him and to his family in the last 24 hours.
While we have made great strides in the world of acceptance for LGBT people, it’s still a sad fact that there are millions of men and women who are, for whatever reason, in the closet. When people like that inflict actual...
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To the Editors:
Your columnist Alexandra Petri wrote Friday that the revelation that Josh Duggar (the eldest son of the TLC reality-TV family in 19 Kids and Counting) was guilty of sexually abusing other children at age 15 is no occasion for glee. She’s obviously bad at hiding her glee. For then she writes “This is a reminder of how badly the cult of purity lets victims down.”
She is right to suggest that it is wrong to assert that someone who’s lost their virginity is immediately and permanently like a cup of spit or a dirty used bicycle – especially for pure, faithful children who’ve become the victim of sexual abuse. But it’s clear that Petri is attacking a “cult of purity” because she doesn’t believe in purity in any form. She doesn’t believe in sin, either.
Petri approvingly...
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Dear Anna,
There are no words for the emotional turmoil you’ve endured this summer. For the past three months, your husband and family have been blasted across the airwaves. Not because another was another Duggar was born or a wedding reception without liquor was being held.
The history of your husband’s child molestation past was brought out from the depths of the Duggar family closet into front pages of newspapers and internet screens overnight. After reactions of disgust towards his actions, strangers from across the world flocked online to judge your decision to marry Josh Duggar despite knowing the transgressions. Would most women have made the same choice as you to still accept this man as a spouse despite knowing what he was capable of doing? No, but it could be seen as valid...
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Dear Mrs. Duggar,
Over the years, I have often defended you to friends and in online comments that criticize the life you have chosen for yourself. I’ve seen and heard comments that describe your family as abusive since your older children become caretakers of the younger while many feel that they should be enjoying their youth, and that you blatantly exploit your children by allowing cameras to record their every awkward and private moment for your own profit.
I have defended you despite how differently your life is structured from my own. I never chose to have children, and I’ve taken a lot of criticism and been the target of a lot of confused reactions to that choice. Despite my own feelings about whether or not to become a mother, I have always defended your right to have as...
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First of all, I would just like to say that I don't hate you not do I really have any sort of dislike for you or any feeling at all for that matter.
Second, I would like to say thank you.
Thank you for showing me early on in my life what it is exactly the wrong one looks like because that made it so much easier for me to find the right one.
The scariest part about the wrong one is that they can have so many similar qualities to the right one that sometimes we become blind to the qualities that probably matter the most. You were kind and caring in the beginning, you gave me a sense of importance in which I had never had before. That kid was was just the thing that kept me blind to what began to go on around me for the next two or so years. My level of importance to you was like a...
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Momma,
I can't believe the day has finally come for you to venture off. I can't imagine how you felt sending me off to college because I already have the empty nest feeling. You have no idea what is in store for you, but I do. I hope your days are filled with a lot less tears, and a lot more laughter, a lot less hurt and a lot more healing. But most of all, I hope you find your place in this crazy life and find days of true happiness.
I'll miss you more than you will ever know, but just know that our Subway Saturdays can be Firehouse Fridays, and big fat mommy days will be big fat mommy weekends, hell maybe one of these days we can have little bitty mommy/daughter days but let's get real, there's too much good food down there for that to happen haha.
I'm not worried about you...
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Dear Kevin
Welcome back to Australia. We hope you enjoy your visit more than last summer. It could not have been fun coming into the Ashes as raging hot favourites only to have your world and dressing room crumble around you as a moustachioed menace reduced your collective stumps to sawdust.
It must have been even more upsetting that as that series effectively finished your test career, it enabled all your former team mates to come out and say they never really liked you anyway. Let’s face it, you are English cricket’s good looking, foreign ex-boyfriend.
When you decided to play in the Big Bash League it must have been tough to pick a team given there are four real teams to choose from (as if the Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth teams are options for a man of your… status)....
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