House Speaker Mike Johnson Pushing Christian Extremist 'Ex-Gay' Torture? LORDY THERE ARE TAPES.
Your daily MIKE JOHNSON IS A FUCKING LUNATIC story.
Time to shine a brighter light on new House Speaker Mike Johnson’s past support for gay-hating psycho-quack “pray away the gay” conversion therapy, which is only endorsed by religious fascists, and never by real therapists. It has directly caused many LGBTQ+ people to kill themselves or attempt to, and it’s banned (or on the way to being banned) in most civilized societies, because of how it’s literally torture, much of it inflicted on minor children.
CNN’s KFile came out with a big story on Johnson’s ties to the practice earlier this week, and now they’ve got LORDY THERE ARE TAPES.
Johnson was a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, now called the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is rightly considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In that position, he worked closely with the now defunct Exodus International, which was one of the leading purveyors of “ex-gay” torture therapy, to indoctrinate children into hate with an event called the “Day of Truth.”
You see, every year there’s a thing called the Day of Silence, in which kids stay silent to shine a light on bullying and other struggles endured by LGBTQ+ youth. This has always chapped the asses of Christian extremists, who pretty accurately view anything that humanizes LGBTQ+ people as an affront to their agenda. Things like the Day of Silence, without having to say so explicitly, expose the religious Right as the terrorist movement it is, as a strong predictor of good mental health and general life success for LGBTQ+ youth is whether they are accepted and loved by their families and communities.
Who doesn’t love and accept LGBTQ+ youth? The kinds of lunatics who adhere to the Christian extremist lifestyle.
So these fucking bastards in 2005 insisted on starting a so-called “Day of Truth” the day after the Day of Silence, to allow vile extremist Christian spawn children to take back the conversation and restart the bullying. These unfriendly and un-Christlike students would hand out cards full of discredited religious lies about changing your sexuality, and so forth.
That’s what Mike Johnson worked with Exodus on. Indeed, the literature used in Day of Truth bullying festivities directed kids to Exodus.
Johnson promoted the event heavily in the media – through radio interviews, comments in newspapers, and an editorial. In interviews, he repeatedly cited the case of a teen who went to school after the Day of Silence wearing a shirt that read, “Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has condemned” and “Homosexuality is shameful.” The teen was suspended and ADF represented him in legal action over the incident. The case was dismissed because the teen graduated, and the court found he no longer had standing to challenge the dress code.
“Day of Truth was really established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda in public schools,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.
Former Exodus executive veep Randy Scobey says Exodus worked with Johnson and ADF “behind the scenes a lot.”
Here’s what Johnson says in the audio recording KFile dug up:
“It’s time for an honest conversation about homosexuality. There’s freedom to change if you want to. Our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and cannot change. But what these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do. It’s not something that you are.”
Got that? Gayness is a sinful lifestyle choice and you can pray it away, but downloading an app so your teenage son gets an Amber alert if Dad’s watching porn is normal.
Wait, who are the groomers again?
In the clip, KFile’s Andy Kaczynski notes that Exodus rather famously shut down in 2013, issuing massive apologies for all the people it hurt. Such is the story with most of the so-called “ex-gay ministries” that existed back then. Some of them have reformed or rebranded, with some of the remaining deranged “ex-gay” charlatans at their helm, but most of the former leaders of the “ex-gay” movement are back to just living plain old gay lives, many of them gay married, and trying to make gay amends to all the people they hurt in their former careers.
(Randy Scobey, mentioned above, falls into this category. Funny story: This writer in a previous life worked closely in the fight against “ex-gay” torture, and it’s nuts how most of the former leading lights of the “ex-gay” industry started out as our enemies and ended up as our Facebook friends.)
Something tells us Mike Johnson hasn’t similarly repented for the people he’s hurt. He didn’t answer KFile’s questions about whether he still believes in this bigoted, debunked shit. There’s no evidence his brain has evolved since he was trying to keep gay sex illegal, or saying gay sex will lead to man-pet sex.
Johnson also says this in the clip, about the historical history of how the Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of all the dudes buttfuckin’:
“Many historians, those who are objective, would look back and recognize and give some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by society.”
Oh boy, somebody is obsessed.
Yeah, Mike, the Roman Empire fell because Sextus est molestus Marcus with their wangers while Flavia and Cornelia were stuck in each other’s ditches playing each other’s lady fiddles while ROME LITERALLY BURNED.
Fucking lunatic.
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
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Friends, Romans, Countrymen! Lend me your rears!
No one who says they pray over bills in Congress should ever be elected. Saying God told me to do it is a cop out excuse for doing what they intended to do all along, thinking that no one can argue with God. Then ask them if they have a signed power of attorney to act on God's behalf. Because without that whatever they say should be considered answering delusional voices. Any question beyond what color to paint the bedroom should not be answered by some mysterious voice in your head that your narcissism claims is coming from God.
Ask them what they would say if I objected, saying I prayed about it and God told me to oppose that bill. And provided biblical references on why I opposed it.
Do we then flip a coin to see which God is right? Rock paper scissors it? Are you going to insult my religion and say the voices in your head are the only true voices. In which case I say the ragged guy in the park saying the world will end tomorrow is being more honest than you because he really believes what he is saying, not simply seeking control over everyone else's lives using what you think is an uncontestable argument. It is not and should never be a basis for voting for any law.
Or maybe use our own thoughts and rational investigation on how a law benefits the general public but still allows maximum individual rights and equality. Which is pretty much what the founders wanted, not counting the slavery disaster. After all the preamble to the constitution, essentially our national mission statement, says "promote the general welfare" with "general" being the key word. Establish justice is also in there. But the bible is never mentioned.