(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) New Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused to back down from remarks that he made 15 years ago when he penned an article suggesting that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a “right to sodomy,” the Daily Mail reported.
Johnson made the comments when asked about an argument that he wrote while he was the spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund 15 years ago.
ADF would go on to become the Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the pre-eminent legal groups currently promoting pro-Christian and pro-conservative values in landmark cases, often before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In that statement, Johnson called homosexuality “inherently unnatural” and called gay marriage “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy.”
Gay marriage, he suggested, is a “moral lapse” that “could doom even the strongest Republic.”
Further, in a 2005 op-ed—one of at least two he wrote in opposition to so-called gay rights issues in Louisiana—Johnson called cross dressing a “bizarre choice” that doesn’t “deserve protection” under the law.
Fox News’s Sean Hannity questioned Johnson about his prior statements, which have made him a ready target for leftist outrage and extreme rhetoric.
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, for instance, attacking him as a “Christian fundamentalist” who should “scare” everyone.
But not only did Johnson refuse to apologize for his views in his interview with Hannity, he doubled-down, citing his Christian faith.
“Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it—that’s my worldview,” he told Hannity. “That’s what I believe, so I do not apologize for it.”
Johnson did back off a bit, noting that while he does not dislike homosexuals or transgenders, he believes that their anti-Christian and anti-political lifestyles pose a problem for society.
“I also genuinely love all people regardless of their lifestyle choices,” he said. “This is not about the people themselves. I am a Bible-believing Christian.”
He explained that it was his job at the time to “defend the state marriage amendments” as a litigator. “I was a religious liberty defense and was called to defend those cases in the courts.”
Johnson was alluding to his time as a defense lawyer for ADL, during which he wrote an opposing opinion to the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision on Lawrence v. Texas. The disposition of that case was the high court’s ruling that states could not pass laws criminalizing sodomy, thus undoing sodomy laws in 13 states.
