Movement

Obviously the Duggars are the most notorious Quiverfull family out there. But they’re hardly the only recognizable reactionaries. Here are a handful of the movement’s leading lights:

Bill Gothard, the previously mentioned former director of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, has ties to Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue. In the 1980s, Bill’s brother Steve Gothard was forced to resign from IBLP after his extramarital affairs with several secretaries cam to light. In 2014, more than 30 women who worked as administrative assistants at the IBLP as teens accused Bill Gothard of having sexually harassed them or acted inappropriately; some said he fondled or kissed them. Gothard, who has never married, released a statement saying “I have never kissed a girl nor have Itouched a girl immorally or with sexual intent.” Recovering Grace, a site for former Gothard followers, has several long and fascinating articles about the now disgraced minister.

Doug Phillips, son of Howard Phillips (leader of the U.S. Constitution Party), served as director of Vision Forum Ministries, one of the many Quiverfull-affiliated ultra-conservative evangelical organizations that helps produce anti-science, pro-Biblical patriarchy “educational” materials. Phillips was a close friend of the Duggars and fundamentalist actor Kirk Cameron—but was forced to step down from his position in late 2013, saying he had a “lengthy, inappropriate relationship with a woman”; the following April, that woman, a 29-year-old named Lourdes Torres-Manteufel who had worked as a nanny for Phillips’ children, sued Phillips for manipulating her and using her as a “personal sex slave.”

Nancy Campbell