Bill Gothard, an Illinois-based advocate for home-schooling and conservative dress and who warned against rock music and debt, has been placed on administrative leave after allegations of sexually harassing women who worked at his ministry and failing to report child abuse cases.
Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles was once a popular gathering spot for thousands of Christian families, including the Duggar family from TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute conferences were also popular among devotees of the Quiverfull movement, who promote large families and eschew birth control.
He’s also rubbed shoulders with Republican luminaries. He and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee were photographed at a campaign lunch together; former Georgia Gov. Sunny Perdue spoke at one of Gothard’s conferences; and Sarah Palin, when she was a small town mayor in Alaska, attended his International Association of Character Cities conferences and declared Wasilla among Gothard’s “Cities of Character.”
In a statement posted Thursday, board chairman Billy Boring told World magazine: “After completion of the review, the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner.” Until then, the statement said, Gothard “will not be involved in the operations of the ministry. The board of directors will be prayerfully appointing interim leadership.”
Gothard is 79 and single.
Wow, an associate of the Duggar family and Sarah Palin, and advocate for the Quiverfull movement, engaging in sexual harassment, who could have possibly imagined such a thing?
In a statement posted Thursday, board chairman Billy Boring told World magazine: “After completion of the review, the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner.” Until then, the statement said, Gothard “will not be involved in the operations of the ministry. The board of directors will be prayerfully appointing interim leadership.”
ReplyDelete~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WTF ?!?
I'm beyond sick of these leaching criminal frauds ..
WTF does "..the board will respond at an appropriate time, and in a biblical manner." supposed to mean, some sort-0-gawdly gibberish ?!?
fuk me a runnin' ..
It means there'll be laying on of hands, Biblical counseling, confession, and repentance after which process Gothard will be triumphantly forgiven and restored to his ministry. Or, given his age, he'll retire.
DeleteIn a Biblical manner? FTS. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card. Like how Penn State tried to with Sandusky. How'd that work out for them?
DeleteMeans as soon as they clean the emails, destroy evidence and lime the skeletons. See Church, RCC, pedophile protection division.
Deletewell, Saarah has 3 options: defend him vigorously and blame the
ReplyDeleteLameStream media, denounce him or ignore the whole thing altogether.
My money's on 3 BEING THE FINE CHRISTIAN THAT SHE 'IS'!
If Palin has a bit of a brain left - she will leave this one alone. Otherwise she could make a statement something like, "If he is ok with the Duggar's - he is ok with me". Have we not heard that sort of nonsense recently from her??
DeletePat Padrnos
She started out with NO brain, so how could she have a bit left?
DeleteThere is a lot more to this story that should come out. The man is sick and leads a cult which has damaged hundreds, if not thousands, of children. Go to http://www.recoveringgrace.org to read some of these stories. We had a family member who married (and later divorced) a young man raised in this cult, so I have some personal knowledge of it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the site. OH my Dog some of those stories were bad and the church was covering up abuse, sexual abuse of children. In fact in the one story a girl was blamed for "tempting" her Father for the sexual abuse that started at age 7.
DeleteDamaged? This asswipe's "theology killed the Yates kids.
DeleteBOOM SHAKA LAKA Asshole! This is Karma knocking on your door!
ReplyDeleteI have always thought that many of these fringe groups that home school do it to hide the systematic child molestation that is common in their religious communities.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the BEST protection against child molestation is sex ed starting in kindergarten with good touch/bad touch.
I totally agree. The photo of Gothard has pervert written all over it.
DeleteExtreme fundamentalists usually have issues and leads them to extreme views. They can do no wrong because they have been saved and repented which is bullshit. I just read Banished a book about Westboro Baptist Church. Girl left and in the book she does not reveal sexually abuse but verbal and physical. I believe there was sexual abuse accounts by other members who left.
ReplyDeleteToo much pent up emotions and/or extreme views due to fear of going to hell for being attracted to children.
Sarah Posner/Salon had the story about Palin and Cities of Character early in the campaign. The article is worth reading for its information on Gothard's group.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/2008/09/18/palin_iacc/
The comments under the article are worth a look.
DeleteI suggest that everyone follow the link that Gryph provided and read the whole thing. Then think on what we know about the Heaths.
ReplyDeleteThe Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it is beginning a process that could block a massive proposed gold mine in Alaska from being built.
ReplyDeleteThe Pebble Mine is a proposed open-pit copper and gold mine that could be up to 2 miles long, a mile and a half wide, and 1,700 feet deep -- the largest of its type in North America. The proposed site for the mine is at the headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers, which feed into the Bristol Bay. It is the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, producing nearly half of the world's wild sockeye.
The EPA said Friday that it is invoking Clean Water Act protections that would stop its construction, citing concerns about the threat it poses to the bay and the fish that depend on it. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that the agency is taking the step to "ensure that the world's most productive salmon fishery is safe from the risks it faces from what could be one of the largest mines on Earth" in a call with reporters Friday afternoon.
McCarthy cited threats to the region's multimillion-dollar fishing industry, as well as to native cultures that rely on the bay. The agency released a scientific assessment of the bay and proposed mine in mid-January, which McCarthy said provided "ample reason for EPA to believe that a mine of the size and scope of Pebble Mine would have significant and irreversible impacts on Bristol Bay."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/epa-pebble-mine_n_4875477.html
"the board will respond... in a biblical manner.”
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean they're going to bring him to the gates of the city and stone him to death?
Works for me. Pass the stones.
DeletePat Padrnos
Maybe like what they did to pastor ted haggard here in my neck of the woods. He was exiled to AZ to be punished and be redeemed. He left AZ early and hightailed it back to Colorado Springs. Now he and his idiot wife conduct a church out of their living room. Not near the epic proportion of worshippers there were at his megachurch, 6 flags over Jesus or new life as they call it...but hey, it's a living..
Delete......it's a grifting....
Delete"His message was that all the conflicts that youth faced while growing up were related to rebelliousness against higher authority. He counselled youth to blindly obey those above them in a hierarchichally ordered, divinely ordained chain of command."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/1/12/91714/3652
Mix that teaching with the prosperity gospel and you get a brainwashed Bristol Palin who doesn't understand that her financial success isn't proof of God's approval.
Ronald Reagan’s racially tinged stump speeches
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/28/ronald-reagans-racially-tinged-stump-speeches/
Never married, huh? Because underage girls were all that floated his boat?
ReplyDeleteA gay religious extremist might abuse/assault underage girls as some sort of 'cure-the-gay' therapy.
DeleteFanned
ReplyDeleteMel68
If he is in a certain position, not reporting child abuse is a crime, NOT subject to internal review, but criminal prosecution - c'mon Illinois state cops or county sheriff, SO YOUR JOBS!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not in any position and have reported child abuse, but then I don't live in Illinois.
DeleteAnother "Pedophile for Palin." Sarah, your choice in associates is about as high-powered as your stupidity. Such a diseased cow you are.
ReplyDeleteIt figures. Told-Ya-So, right $carah.
ReplyDeleteThose are Sarah $carah's hangout buddies.
Wow, I went to one of his 3 day seminars back in the seventies when i was a teenager. All the fundamentalist churches were pushing his agenda and we were all trying to be perfectly chaste and all that. Not easy when you are young and Gothard was always giving others sexual advice and he never married or had a relationship that was known of. Just another hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteBill Gothard. SERIOUSLY? No wonder Sarah loves him. 79 and never got married - that's code for he smells like old socks, bleu cheese and Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteAdvice to Bill... dressing conservatively doesn't help keep pervs away from girls, your version of home schooling is to divide, isolate and victimize. Just cause you gothard doesn't mean you had to "share it" Keep your perve fantasies in your brain and go fondle yourself, assclown.
Any relation to Mike Hunt?
What about Ophelia Twatt? Or Ivana Fuqua?
Delete79 and not married ?....methinks the lady doth protest too much!
ReplyDeleteSum ting wong with his wang?
DeleteUgh, a pathetic stereotype. He probably has no clue to the damage he has done.
ReplyDeleteThey're going to respond in a biblical manner?
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean? They're going to suggest stoning him?
Except I don't believe sexual harassment or child abuse is mentioned in the bible as a sin.
They'll probably blame the woman, say children are chattel and there's nothing to see here, move along.