This Duggar don't care! A recent speech made by Jim Bob Duggar revealed that the 19 Kids and Counting patriarch has paid no mind to the petition that calls for TLC to cancel his family's reality show.
"They won't succeed," Jim Bob, 49, said at Booster Banquet at Hannibal-LaGrange University last month on Nov. 21. "Our show is the number one show on TLC. We love everybody. It’s a small group creating this fuss. All it has done is give us more exposure."
He added that the petition was counter-effective, instead calling more attention to his family's reality show. "We’ve gained 50,000 Facebook fans last week," the father of 19 noted (via MBC Pathway). "God is expanding our borders through the national media."
His comments were made in the wake of a Change.org petition requesting that TLC cancel 19 Kids and Counting in hopes to "end LGBTQ fear mongering by the Duggars." Activists launched the online petition after the family opposed an LGBT ordinance in their native Fayetteville, Ark.
Several weeks before that, Michelle and Jim Bob issued a "kissing challenge" for married couples on their Facebook page and controversially removed photos of gay couples.
The university's president reportedly told the crowd that his staff had to hire extra security for the event due to death threats received by the Duggars. Despite the controversy, Jim Bob claimed that his family's mission was to spread their faith in a loving manner. "We love everybody, but we don’t always agree with them," he told reporters, adding later that the show was an outlet to display this.
"We decided maybe this was an opportunity to share with the world that children are a blessing," Michelle said at the university event of her family's reality show. "We told them we wouldn’t do it if they edited out our faith."
Her husband added: "If each of us dedicate ourselves to follow what God has put on our hearts, it will be an army to impact the world for Christ."