You have probably seen the stories circulating on the web, about how the hacking of an adult “cheating” site revealed that Josh Duggar, beloved symbol of the sanctity of Marriage, and active anti-LGBT activist, had at least two “cheating” accounts, and was unfaithful to his wife. Since the story broke, Duggar has apologized to his wife and has blamed the indiscretion on a porn addiction.

Many sites, especially LGBTQ bloggers are really playing this up and shaming Duggar, not to mention laughing at him, an approach, I don’t find particularly useful to the LGBTQ Rights movement. Sure, it feels good to point out how the self-righteous are hypocrites, but past that feel good micro-moment, it accomplishes nothing.

There is however, a moral to the story, and a number of examples can be found. I believe grasping it can change the tenor of the LGBTQ battle for full equality.

You see, average straight persons, even those with strong religious convictions, don’t fight tooth and nail against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and trans persons being treated with dignity, respect and fairness.  They just live their lives. The ones who are so busy trying to change LGBTQ persons or shame LGBTQ persons or demonize us, are acting out of some deeper pain or guilt. They have to make others out to be worse persons than themselves to make themselves feel better. They have to focus on others so as to be distracted from looking at their own lives.

These people are a very loud but small minority. They are gifted at using fear mongering that others believe, but really, only a small minority are rabidly anti-LGBTQ.

In our efforts to gain full equality with respect and dignity, our focus shouldn’t be on this perverse minority, but rather, dismantling the messages of fear that get used to say the masses. If we can continue to voice reality, and let people know who gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and queer people really are, these rabidly zealots will not have any power to sway opinions with fear tactics.

Josh Duggar is a shining example of how a rigid, unrealistic, and hurtful fringe fundamentalist mindset harms those under its control.    He is an example of how much it destroys a person to try and live out a lie and pretend to be a person other than who you are. For LGBTQ persons, the closet functions similarly. In Duggar’s case, it is more fundamentally dishonesty, cowardice, and hypocrisy.

I’ve seen some dialogue today about how unfair it was to Duggar that all of this came out– that he was unfairly outed. I don’t personally agree with that. He created the mess he finds himself in, and deserves whatever shit comes from it all, at least that’s my opinion.