Last week 27-year-old Josh Duggar, reality TV star of The Learning Channel’s “19 Kids and Counting,” resigned from his position in the Family Resource Council (FRC) — the top conservative Christian lobbying group in Washington DC — on the heels of a scandal.

It was revealed in a news story from InTouch magazine that in 2002 Josh, then 14 years old, sexually abused a number of young girls including his younger sisters. His parents did not report it to the authorities for over a year.

What followed shortly after the revelation and resignation was a public free-fall. With outcry mounting to cancel the show altogether, The Learning Channel has pulled “19 Kids and Counting” from its lineup. Up until that time, the network was playing re-runs of past episodes. The show has had eight seasons and the network and was preparing for its ninth.

For those of us unfamiliar with the Duggars, the TV show’s title says it all. It’s about an American family complete with a devoted husband, his wife and their 19 children. Josh’s parents Jim Bob and Michelle are devout evangelical Christians who obviously practice no family planning of any type, counting each pregnancy as God’s will. The Duggars take part in what is called the Quiverfull Movement.

Aside from a “Trust the Lord” methodology of family planning — equating birth control drugs and devices to abortion — Quiverfull values include patriarchy, courtship and betrothal as opposed to dating. Quiverfull advocates sheltering children from outside influences such as peers or public school. It promotes biblical manhood and womanhood, being debt-free and independent of government support, home church, and modesty for girls and women lest they become temptation for men.

Evangelical Christians aren’t the only ones taking part in the movement. Many fundamentalist religious groups who practice some form of home-schooling adhere to the Quiverfull movement’s values. The more years of acceptance and adherence to the values espoused by the Quiverfull movement, the more a normal family becomes a patriarchal cult of true believers.

The news story and Josh’s admission has done more than get his family’s TV show removed from cable television, at least for now. There are questions about Josh, the Duggars and the religious network of support that protected him and them. Why did Jim Bob and Michelle keep things under wraps for so long? Why wasn’t there effective psychological counseling when Josh’s behavior was first discovered? Why hadn’t we heard of the matter from Josh’s sisters?

The answers lie in the culture that the Duggars live in, which approves a conspiracy of silence. At the time of the incident, the Duggars sought private help for Josh, sending him to the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), which advocates Bible-based teachings to help families and individuals in crisis. According to the IBLP’s doctrine, the young women who Josh Duggar abused may have acted “immodestly,” tempting him away from his purity, and are thus partly responsible for his groping them. The Institute’s faith-based methodology counsels forgiveness of the abuser by the victims. According to the ideology of the IBLP, there are no victims in matters of abuse of any kind. It counsels that there should be no bitterness (therefore no recrimination or reporting) against the abuser.

With this type of perspective ingrained in the institute’s teaching, as well as in his own family’s values, it’s no wonder Josh Duggar does not see himself as having committed a crime, which is what sexually assaulting a minor is.

If it seems that I am only rehashing tabloid news you are free to stop reading right here. But the Family Research Council, of which the Duggars play a part, write the agenda for many members of Congress who make policies that control our lives and our choices. The purity culture promoted by the FRC, the IBLP and the Duggars’ reality show creates a culture of rape for women — who are, in their worldview, responsible for the violence perpetrated against them.

The saving grace of Josh Duggar’s public free-fall for the rest of us is that we get a glimpse into the mind of the American Taliban. Even though I find myself refraining from judging Josh for what he did in the past and even the society in which he was raised, that subculture has no compunction against continuing to judge and trying to control the rest of us.

They will not hesitate to impose their world view and morality onto the rest of us. In fact, they continue to do so each day through the utterances of politicians who use their words and ideas to forward laws governing what women can do with our bodies and who can marry. The very definition of Taliban is: “a fundamentalist (Islamic) militia in Afghanistan.” Change the religion and the country, and in modern-day America, it looks like the shoe fits.