Sarah Palin tried to defend the Duggars by labeling Lena Dunham a “pedophile,” but Jessa Duggar and her parents have already argued that the Girls actress isn’t actually a pedophile or child molester.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Sarah Palin recently decided to insert herself into the media fray surrounding the Duggars. She couldn’t exactly defend the actions of Josh Duggar and his parents, so she tried to deflect the Duggar criticism by calling attention to something Lena Dunham wrote in her memoir. To really make her point, Palin posted her pro-Duggar, anti-Dunham rant in all caps.
“HEY LENA, WHY NOT LAUGH OFF EVERYONE’S SEXUAL ‘EXPERIMENTS’ AS YOU HAUGHTILY ENJOY REWARDS FOR YOUR OWN PERVERSION? YOU PEDOPHILE, YOU.”
In her memoir, Lena Dunham admitted that she once looked at her little sister’s vagina. According to Yahoo! Celebrity , she was 7-years-old at the time, and she claimed that she looked inside her sister’s genitals because she couldn’t see inside her own. Lena also made an extremely offensive joke in which she compared herself to a sexual predator and she later apologized for it. You can read the joke below.
Here’s the Lena Dunham “sexual predator” joke, in case yall thought it was made up. pic.twitter.com/XmMUQD1OuK
— Dianna E Anderson (@diannaeanderson) November 1, 2014
Josh Duggar also likes to make awkward sex jokes. During an episode of 19 Kids and Counting , he attempted to make incest funny.
Sarah Palin might think that 7-year-old Lena Dunham was a pedophile, but she doesn’t fit the definition that Jim Bob and Jessa Duggar shared during their recent Fox News interviews. According to Us Weekly , Jessa told The Kelly File host Megyn Kelly that she doesn’t consider her older brother a pedophile or child molester.
“I’m not going to justify anything that he did or say it was okay. It’s not permissible,” Jessa said. “But I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist. That is so overboard and a lie, really.”
Jessa said that her brother was simply curious, which also just happens to be Lena’s explanation for why she looked at her little sister’s genitals.
According to In Touch Weekly , Josh Duggar started molesting his sisters when he was 14-years-old. His victims included Jessa Duggar, Jill Duggar, two other sisters, and an unknown girl. When he was 15-years-old, he molested his 5-year-old sister.
As Gawker points out, Jim Bob Duggar also argued that his son isn’t a pedophile. If you go by his definition of the word, Lena Dunham isn’t, either.
“Actually a pedophile is an adult that preys on children,” Jim Bob said. “Joshua was actually 14 and just turned 15 when he did what he did. And I think that the legal definition is 16 and up for being an adult preying on a child. So he was a child preying on a child.”
Sarah Palin went on to complain about what she perceives as the media’s double standard when it comes to “liberal” celebrities vs. “conservative” celebrities.
“I’m sickened that the media gives their chosen ones a pass for any behavior as long as they share their leftwing politics. Case in point, they suggest Lena Dunham’s sexual assault on her sibling is cute, and she’s rewarded for it with fame and fortune.”
However, Lena most definitely didn’t get a free pass. According to Salon , there was a huge backlash to the actress’ anecdote shortly after her book was released. Critics dubbed her a pedophile and “the problem with mainstream feminism,” and they tried to get HBO to cancel Girls using the hashtag “#DropDunham.”
Luckily for Sarah Palin, she can still feed her persecution complex — she’ll take solace in knowing that Lena’s 7-year-old self did get a little more support than Josh Duggar’s 15-year-old self. Gawker asked Sam Rubenstein, a psychotherapist who specializes in childhood abuse, about Lena’s admission, and he dubbed her behavior “normal” for the age group she was in.
“If I had a quarter for every kid in that age demographic that touched somebody else out of curiosity, I’d be a rich man. I think that’s a natural part of development and curiosity… there’s really almost nothing sexual about it. The same explanation could be used for grabbing the dog’s tail. It’s the same type of coercion. Just because it’s in the sexual venue, people want to attach something to it, but it’s almost totally different. It’s an innocent type of thing.”
Jessa Duggar tried to say that her brother’s actions were just as innocent by claiming that he was simply “a little too curious about girls,” but he obviously knew that there was nothing innocent about he was doing. Jessa herself described him as being “sly,” and he usually molested his sisters while they were sleeping. The guilt-ridden teen also confessed his “sins” to his parents three times.
In her Facebook post, Sarah Palin says that the media shouldn’t “go after the entire Duggar family for one member’s wrongdoing.” However, what happened wasn’t just one family member’s wrongdoing — Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar didn’t take any serious action to stop Josh Duggar from molesting his sisters after his first two confessions, and this led to his victim count growing to include his 5-year-old sister. Sadly, Jessa and Jill Duggar think that their parents did “an amazing job” handling their family’s massive crisis.
Sarah Palin certainly wasn’t defending Lena Dunham from right-wing attacks after her memoir passage went viral, but the former GOP VP candidate just had to try to find a reason to defend the Duggars. Sarah Palin wants to paint the media as being partisan and hypocritical, but isn’t she doing exactly what she’s complaining about by treating the two scandals differently?
[Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images]