Tuesday, reality TV stars Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar announced they are expecting another child, due in April, 2012. The Duggars already have 19 children. The new addition will make 20.
The Duggars are famous for their biological prowess: they are breeders extraordinaire, with 19 biological children and another one on the way. The family gained much of their fame by appearing on TLC’s “19 and Counting” a reality television show documenting the life of the freakishly large family.
Speaking on the TODAY show about her pregnancy, Michelle Dugggar said:
“We are just so grateful to God and so excited. We always have a motto around our house that there’s always room for one more.”
Quiverfull
Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."
Michelle Duggar’s reference to God cannot be overemphasized. The Duggars are part of an underground conservative evangelical Christian movement known as Quiverfull. The movement promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God. Eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning, adherents are known as "quiver full", "full quiver", "quiverfull-minded", or simply "QF" Christians.
The conservative Christian movement wants to raise up a cultural army to roll back modernity, and transform the U.S. into a conservative Christian theocracy. The movement has links to Dominionism and other branches of fundamentalist Christianity looking to impose a Christian theocracy.
Misogyny
The Quiverfull movement places emphasis on the importance of women submitting to their husbands and fathers, and is often recognized as a backlash to the gains made in women’s rights by the feminist movement. It is an anti-feminist backlash that holds that gender equality is contrary to God's law and that women's highest calling is as wives and "prolific" mothers. In line with other fundamentalist Christians, they believe a woman’s place is in the home, breeding children and serving her husband.
The movement embraces misogyny as God’s law. Women are reduced to breeders. Children reduced to metaphorical cannon fodder in to be brainwashed and sent out as cultural warriors, fighting for Christian dominion over America.
While the Duggars may try to put a happy public face on their extreme religious ideology, the Quiverfull movement represents a dark and disturbing threat to secular America, and the secular values upon which this nation was founded.
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