Shiny Happy People: A Duggar and IBLP Documentary

[Coconut Flan]

It's preaching to the choir here, but it's a good summary:

https://www.themarysue.com/shiny-happy-people-duggar-documentary-reveals-who-the-real-predators-are/

[Cam]

3 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

It's preaching to the choir here, but it's a good summary:

https://www.themarysue.com/shiny-happy-people-duggar-documentary-reveals-who-the-real-predators-are/

Good article. Thanks for the link.

[SilverBeach]

On 6/1/2023 at 8:03 PM, thoughtful said:

I did learn something - I didn't know that Gothard's father was the head of the Gideons.

Me too, who in the US hasn't seen one of their bibles in a hotel nightstand drawer?

I still can't get over Gothard living in my little suburb.  It's a liberal, hip place, probably not when he was born but it changed. IBLP headquarters was up the road in an exclusive, expensive area. I remember seeing long jean skirt long ponytail women at Oakbrook Mall and thinking they looked a little weird, bet they were IBLP. Ugh, gives me shivers, they were under the radar and never in the local news. Probably stood next to some of them at Walgreens or something.

I binged watched all four parts and in my opinion the program did a good job of showing how insidious IBLP/ATI actually was. And how complicit TLC was in the exploitation of the Duggar children and hiding the family's heavy IBLP involvement. Boob and Meech can stuff their lame response where the sun don't shine, as can their dooofus son Jed. 

I hope this isn't the end of shining major light on harmful, politicized Christian fundamentalism. It's dangerous.

Oh, it may have been mentioned already, but Amazon owns the Freevee app and the documentary is streaming there also, no Prime needed.

 

[KWLand]

I googled to make sure Gothard lives in Illinois like I thought he did.  I get too happy when I find out an outspoken evil republican live in Illinois.   Especially the suburbs.   
now I will quickly make myself forget he’s that close and pretend he’s in Texas next to the Collins.  (I like Disney too much to pretend he’s there).  He took the Steve Anderson adjacent fundies with him.  Because they really live too close for comfort.  

[Nolongeroppressed8.4]

I am having **SUCH** a hard time watching this. I’m seeing people I know in shots of Knoxville. People I don’t know are repeating stories that  mirror ones my friends experienced. I’m literally nauseous. How can soooo many people have been fooled into this? And I realize the grooming and safe haven for abuse / abusers means that quite a few of them weren’t fooled. They knew exactly what they were doing even if it was semi-subconscious. 
 

May God have mercy on their souls for I cannot. 
 

The Duggars were behind my days … I was married when the show started. I thought I was in the tail end of IBLP and ATI. I had no idea it was the zenith. Makes me sick. I should have done more to end it. Stop the crap. 
 

I have so many stories. This documentary didn’t even scratch the surface. They tickled it. 

[viii]

Agreed; I hope they do more episodes. There is so much more to be shared. 

[Caroline]

I think this thread mentioned that Abigail Miller was critical of the SHP documentary and the cultish behavior of the Duggars in general. Very interesting.  She sounds like a reasonable person, but I sometimes check out her husband's FB page. Recently he had a video I didn't listen to because the intro was all about how the LGBTQ community needs God because they are so lost and hopeless. Gag. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

I think this thread mentioned that Abigail Miller was critical of the SHP documentary and the cultish behavior of the Duggars in general. Very interesting.  She sounds like a reasonable person, but I sometimes check out her husband's FB page. Recently he had a video I didn't listen to because the intro was all about how the LGBTQ community needs God because they are so lost and hopeless. Gag. 

He’s horrible. I can’t stand him. I’m amazed she’s still married to him. I’ve expected her to grow past him and file for divorce. But not yet. Maybe in a few years. 

[KSmom]

Bookriot.com has an article up about the documentary and the links between IBLP and the current book ban  movement.

https://bookriot.com/shiny-happy-people-and-book-bans/

[Letgo]

On 6/8/2023 at 6:06 AM, hoipolloi said:

As of last month, the court has granted her a 10-year order of protection until 2033, the longest allowed by Arkansas state law.

What does someone need to do to have a TEN YEAR protection order issued? I’ve never heard of one like that. Do the Holts have any children still at home? How would an order work if there are minor children in the family?

[marmalade]

52 minutes ago, Letgo said:

What does someone need to do to have a TEN YEAR protection order issued? I’ve never heard of one like that. Do the Holts have any children still at home? How would an order work if there are minor children in the family?

I believe there are still minor children. The Holt son who also got an order of protection is 20. It sounds like Bobye remained in the family home with the kids.

[noseybutt]

My guess is that the judge doesn’t want him to have a gun.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think Silas, Kharis, Seth and Scottie are the only ones left at home in the Holt family. 

Sam with the restraining order could be living with his younger siblings and mom At home but he’s around 20. So he may have moved out. The older unmarried daughters don’t live at home. 

[neuroticcat]

On 6/9/2023 at 7:30 AM, pupper said:

I imagine that some of the Bates clan are smugly imagining how, if they had been interviewed, they would have set everyone straight about how Godly and perfect their views and practices really are.

They think that IBLP was simply misrepresented in the documentary and still don’t recognize the harm and danger in it promotes.

In an early episode of the Duggar show, the Bates come to visit. Bates are still in frumper dresses galore. The cameraman got a shot of Erin Bates outright staring at Amy I think. It came across as judgey judgey look, but it very well may have been longing or who knows what. 

But it is iconic for me in that though the Bates and Duggars learned to not be judgey outright toward other people and say things like: it's not our conviction but we don't speak for others, judgmentalism is a piece of it, especially when you're young. 

So I imagine that is really hard to uproot if you watched the documentary. I think you'd imagine you were above reproach in other ways.

Anyone know who Evita Duffy is? I searched "duffy" on here and it looks like people have talked about Congressman Sean Duffy - she is one of his nine duaghters.

She wrote this "not all homeschoolers" anti-Shiny Happy People piece, and I just wondered if anyone knew if they had old connections to IBLP or fundamentalist homeschooling. She's so young. I'd love to see her take on this in ten years. https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/08/amazons-duggar-docuseries-exploits-one-familys-drama-to-vilify-all-christians-and-homeschooling/

[JermajestyDuggar]

44 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

In an early episode of the Duggar show, the Bates come to visit. Bates are still in frumper dresses galore. The cameraman got a shot of Erin Bates outright staring at Amy I think. It came across as judgey judgey look, but it very well may have been longing or who knows what. 

But it is iconic for me in that though the Bates and Duggars learned to not be judgey outright toward other people and say things like: it's not our conviction but we don't speak for others, judgmentalism is a piece of it, especially when you're young. 

So I imagine that is really hard to uproot if you watched the documentary. I think you'd imagine you were above reproach in other ways.

Anyone know who Evita Duffy is? I searched "duffy" on here and it looks like people have talked about Congressman Sean Duffy - she is one of his nine duaghters.

She wrote this "not all homeschoolers" anti-Shiny Happy People piece, and I just wondered if anyone knew if they had old connections to IBLP or fundamentalist homeschooling. She's so young. I'd love to see her take on this in ten years. https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/08/amazons-duggar-docuseries-exploits-one-familys-drama-to-vilify-all-christians-and-homeschooling/

Evita is the daughter of two people who met on a reality tv show on mtv back in the 90s. I watched mtv a lot back then. They are very conservative and raised their children to be conservative as well. Evita is just following in her parents’ conservative footsteps. Plus they are dirty Catholics. We know IBLP and VF don’t like Catholics. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by JermajestyDuggar

[marmalade]

4 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Evita is the daughter of two people who met on a reality tv show on mtv back in the 90s. I watched mtv a lot back then. They are very conservative and raised their children to be conservative as well. Evita is just following in her parents’ conservative footsteps. 

What were their names? The people ring a vague bell, like Real World? 

[JermajestyDuggar]

3 minutes ago, marmalade said:

What were their names? The people ring a vague bell, like Real World? 

Sean Duffy and Rachel Campos. Rachel was on Real World San Fran with Puck and Pedro. And then Sean was on Real world Boston. They met on Road Rules all stars after they had already done the real world.

[marmalade]

Rachel! That's exactly who I was thinking of. I knew she hooked up with someone from the MTVverse, but I couldn't remember his name. Thanks!

Edited June 12, 2023 by marmalade

[GreenBeans]

1 hour ago, neuroticcat said:

She's so young. I'd love to see her take on this in ten years. https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/08/amazons-duggar-docuseries-exploits-one-familys-drama-to-vilify-all-christians-and-homeschooling/

So smug. Reminds me of one of the Maxwell daughters’ (Mary?) blog post “why I don’t go to college”. We all know that didn’t age well. 😁 Not making fun of Mary Maxwell, btw, I think it takes lots of courage to let go of long-held and very publicly proclaimed beliefs, so more power to her. It just shows that luckily, people and opinions can and do change over time. It’s called personal growth.

[noseybutt]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Evita is the daughter of two people who met on a reality tv show on mtv back in the 90s. I watched mtv a lot back then. They are very conservative and raised their children to be conservative as well. Evita is just following in her parents’ conservative footsteps. Plus they are dirty Catholics. We know IBLP and VF don’t like Catholics. 

Any connection to Mary Duffy? 
 

ETA I meant Cathy Duffy. Pretty sure she was an evangelical homeschooler who converted to Catholicism. I think I morphed her name with Mary Pride. There were quite a few conservative evangelical women who converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy around 2000-2010.

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by noseybutt

[gustava]

8 hours ago, GreenBeans said:

So smug. Reminds me of one of the Maxwell daughters’ (Mary?) blog post “why I don’t go to college”. We all know that didn’t age well. 😁 Not making fun of Mary Maxwell, btw, I think it takes lots of courage to let go of long-held and very publicly proclaimed beliefs, so more power to her. It just shows that luckily, people and opinions can and do change over time. It’s called personal growth.

Thanks for this link.  Federalist Society is responsible for the right wing nut SCOTUS.

[Hane]

Here’s some more: an IBLP/ATI alum speaks out on the Cults to Consciousness YouTube channel—

https://youtu.be/ElVaj7jv4qE

Edited June 13, 2023 by Hane

[Coconut Flan]

SUBSCRIBER-ONLY NEWSLETTER

David French

OPINION

‘Shiny Happy People,’ Fundamentalism and the Toxic Quest for Certainty

It's an interesting opinion piece on his encounter with Gothard's Basic Seminar and a good piece of advice on recognizing problem groups.

https://archive.ph/T8bzh#selection-301.0-331.70

[keen23]

Tia Levings from the doc was the guest on the A Little Bit Culty pod this week. She's very articulate, and it's worth a listen.

https://alittlebitculty.com/

Edited June 14, 2023 by keen23
Added link to Podcast

[KWLand]

On 6/12/2023 at 12:39 AM, noseybutt said:

Any connection to Mary Duffy? 
 

ETA I meant Cathy Duffy. Pretty sure she was an evangelical homeschooler who converted to Catholicism. I think I morphed her name with Mary Pride. There were quite a few conservative evangelical women who converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy around 2000-2010.

 

I think Cathy Duffy wrote a book about homeschool curriculum.  Just wanted to toss that out.

abigail Miller has been doing reels with her daughter.  I’ve seen a couple and IMO they are cringey, but are really a sign of how much she’s changed since I first found her  which I hope more people do once processing the documentary