WASHINGTON – Newly elected Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) defended his extremist anti-LGBTQ views on Thursday, telling Fox News, ‘I am a Bible believing Christian,” adding, “go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it – that’s my worldview.”
The Washington Post, in an article published on Thursday that chronicles the congressman’s “campaign against gay rights” throughout his career, reported that one of his aides directed the paper to a Facebook post written by Johnson last year in which he “argued that ‘biblical beliefs’ were inseparable from ‘public affairs.’”
After the little-known evangelical Southern Baptist Republican politician was elevated on Wednesday to become his party’s highest-ranking elected official, second in line to the presidency, details about his far-right, socially conservative views began to emerge.
CNN uncovered editorials written by Johnson from 2003 to 2005 in which he argued for the criminalization of gay sex, called homosexuality an “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle,” and said marriage equality poses a threat to “our entire democratic system” — warning that “polyg-amists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others will be next in line to claim equal protection.”
At the time, and until 2010, Johnson was an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ hate legal group according to The Southern Poverty Law Center, and “arguably the most extreme anti-LGBTQ legal organization in the United States” according to Lambda Legal.
When asked about the op-eds by Fox News personality Sean Hannity, the Speaker said, “I don’t even remember some of them” and defended his work fighting against same-sex marriage on behalf of the right-wing group during the early 2000s.
The Post reports that during this time Johnson was “at the leading edge of litigating high-profile cases contesting protections for abortion, contraception coverage and gay and transgender rights.”
Many Louisianans were first introduced to Johnson in the 1990s, when he appeared on television with his wife to promote “covenant marriage,” which is available in Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas and carries legally binding provisions that make divorce more difficult. Critics say these unions can make harmful and abusive relationships worse.
Before serving in the state legislature from 2015 to 2017, and then in the U.S. House beginning in 2017, Johnson had sought tax subsidies, with a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Christian creationist group Answers in Genesis, to fund the Noah’s Ark amusement park in Kentucky whose exhibits contradict the scientific consensus on matters like the age of the Earth, such as by showing dinosaurs coexisting with humans.
Johnson’s term in the Louisiana legislature was defined by his introduction of legislation called the Marriage and Conscience Act, which critics argued was intended to protect the right to discriminate against same-sex couples. Most Republican members of the statehouse joined with the Democrats to defeat the bill.
Earlier this week, a group of House Republicans sank U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer’s (R-Minn.) bid for the speakership, reportedly in part because of the congressman’s support for marriage equality.
A day before he was elected, Johnson told Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News he had made an issue of Emmer’s vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified legal protections for married LGBTQ couples and was backed by 38 other Republican members of the House.
Last year, he cosponsored the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, which would prohibit public schools, libraries, and all federally funded institutions from offering “sexually explicit” programs, events, and literature for children under 10.
Dubbed the “federal ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law,” the bill defines “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects” as per-se sexually explicit, which critics including activist and civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo have called “dehumanizing” to LGBTQ people.
Johnson was also a co-sponsor of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill that aims to ban guideline directed gender affirming healthcare interventions for transgender youth and would impose draconian criminal penalties for providers who do so.
In July, as chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Johnson led a hearing on the topic where, according to the Human Rights Campaign, “lies and disinformation” were spread “about what that [health] care consists of,” to advocate for policies that would put “unqualified lawmakers” between “medical professionals, parents and their children.”
In addition to the Respect for Marriage Act, HRC notes the congressman also voted against the Equality Act, the LGBTQI+ Data Inclusion Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and the Violence Against Women Act.
As chair of the Republican Study Committee in Congress, Johnson argued against Amazon’s decision to stop selling work by conversion therapy advocate Joseph Nicolosi, who died in 2017.
In 2022, the congressman said there is no separation of church and state in America. “If anybody tries to convince you that your biblical beliefs or your religious viewpoint needs to separated from public affairs,” he said, “you should politely remind them to review their history and you should not back down.”
During his relatively short time in Congress, Johnson co-sponsored three bills attempting to ban abortion nationwide, each imposing criminal penalties for providers who perform abortions: the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, and the Heartbeat Protection Act.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Johnson played “a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results” of the 2020 election, which was “rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities.”
His efforts led 60 percent of the GOP conference to sign on to the amici brief, filed in connection with the case brought by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which was ultimately thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that,” Johnson said, parroting what was one of the most far-fetched conspiracies spread by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
