Jessa Duggar’s Mother-In-Law Supports Abuser Josh By Siding With Mike Huckabee

Jessa Seewald’s mother-in-law has shown where her loyalties lie in the wake of the Josh Duggar underage sex abuse scandal. Instead of offering her love and support to Josh’s victims, she’s letting everyone know that she stands by the abuser.

As the Inquisitr previously reported, Josh Duggar has confessed to sexually molesting his sisters. According to a police report, the oldest Duggar son fondled the breasts and genitalia of four of his sisters, usually while they were sleeping. The Duggars only had five daughters at the time Josh was abusing his siblings, so there’s a high likelihood that Jessa Duggar was one of his victims. According to one report, Jana was the only daughter who wasn’t molested during the time period when the known instances of abuse took place.

You’d think Jessa’s mother-in-law, Guinn Seewald, would have nothing but sympathy for her son’s pregnant wife and her sisters. However, like many 19 Kids and Counting fans, Ben Seewald’s mother seems more concerned about Josh Duggar.

Guinn hasn’t actually shared any of her own thoughts about Josh sexually molesting his sisters and his parents’ attempt to protect him from the law. Instead, she used Mike Huckabee’s musings on the scandal to let her Facebook followers know where she stands. Most of Huckabee’s words are a defense of Josh.

“Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.'” Huckabee wrote in a Facebook post. “He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story.”

He went on to excuse Josh’s behavior the same way many Duggar supporters have done — he said that 14-year-old Josh’s sexual abuse of his sisters was simply a teenage mistake.

“Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things. The reason that the law protects disclosure of many actions on the part of a minor is that the society has traditionally understood something that today’s blood-thirsty media does not understand—that being a minor means that one’s judgement is not mature.”

If Josh wasn’t an outspoken Christian and a family friend, Huckabee would probably view his actions a bit differently. In a 2009 Fox News blog, he shared his thoughts about director Roman Polanski having sex with an underage girl.

“There should be no defense of him from anyone. What he did was evil and reprehensible. The fact that he is a great director doesn’t obscure the fact that he robbed a child of far more than Bernie Madoff stole from his victims.”

In his response to the Josh Duggar sex abuse scandal, Huckabee does eventually get around to mentioning the victims by saying that they “wanted this to be left in the past,” but it’s partly the fault of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar that Josh’s abuse has come back to haunt the family — had they actually contacted the proper authorities over a decade ago and decided against signing on for a reality show, Jessa Duggar and her sisters wouldn’t be in the terrible position that they’re in now. Their parents turned them into public figures, and they’re being forced to relive a dark time in their lives that they’ve had to keep secret for many years. The Duggar daughters were also forced to live in the same house as their abuser.

Jessa Duggar and Ben Seewald are usually very active on social media, but neither of them have shared their thoughts about what Josh did. However, the day the police report was released, Jessa did post an Instagram photo of her 17-year-old sister Joy-Anna. Joy was just four or five-years-old when Josh started molesting his sisters.

Many Duggar fans are more focused on defending Josh than worrying about his sisters, but it’s possible that the girls weren’t just molested — they were burdened with unnecessary guilt and shame that they may still be struggling with to this very day. The Washington Post shared an excerpt from Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s book, A Love That Multiplies, and it offers some insight about what Jessa and her sisters are taught about sex. While writing about purity, Michelle compares someone who has engaged in sexual activity before marriage to a new bike that has been stolen, ridden, and returned before being given to a child as a Christmas gift.

“I’m sure you would still be grateful for the bike, and you would have fun riding it, but it won’t be in the condition your parents had hoped and dreamed it would be when you received it. You would miss out on a lot of the enjoyment they meant for you to have. In that same way, we don’t want any boy (or girl) to come and steal your purity.”

In other words, Josh’s sisters probably feel like what he did to them made them worth less, even though it was no fault of their own. According to Gawker, the home school training materials that the Duggars use also contain handouts on sexual abuse, and they contain a lot of victim-blaming language. One “lesson” suggests that the victim possibly brought the abuse on herself with her “immodest dress,” and it instructs her to forgive her abuser.

Do you think Jessa Duggar and her sisters would be saddened to see people like Mike Huckabee and her mother-in-law defending Josh and her parents, or are the girls so used to this way of viewing the world that they would agree that Josh deserves forgiveness for what he did instead of proper punishment and treatment?

[Image credit: Jessa Duggar/Instagram]