Hobby Lobby Funded the Duggars' Allegedly Sex-Abusing Cult Minister [View all]

[Galraedia]

The founder of a homeschooling empire championed by reality TV's Duggar family and Sarah Palin, Bill Gothard resigned earlier this year amid accusations that he molested dozens of women. No one, he says, was more instrumental to his now-controversial ministry than the family behind Hobby Lobby.

Mother Jones' David Corn and Molly Redden published a detailed investigation this morning showing that long before the Green family—which owns Hobby Lobby—fought to avoid covering contraception for its insured employees, it gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and real estate to Gothard and his controversial theocratic fundamentalist Baptist movement.

Considered by many mainstream Christians to be a cult, Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles has for decades advocated a cloistered, rigid conservative approach to raising children in Christ—which interested parties can learn about by paying, Scientology-style, for successive lectures, videos, seminars, and isolated boot camp-style experiences. Gothard is also associated with Quiverfull, a fringe movement championed by Jim and Michelle Duggar (of 19 Kids and Counting fame) that advocates wifely submission and mandates plentiful procreation and sees all forms of birth control as sinful—a philosophy that is not shared by most mainline Protestants.

Gothard tells Mother Jones that his ties with Hobby Lobby's Green family have been indispensable to his work. "The secret of their success is their generosity," he said, adding: "They're friends. I see and talk to them periodically."

More at: http://gawker.com/hobby-lobby-funded-the-duggars-allegedly-sex-abusing-cu-1599083411