TWIBS: Our God Fearin’, Ark Lovin’ New House Speaker
Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana is the Republicans new Speaker of the House and… well…
by Alyssa Steinsiek
all roads now lead to freakin’ Mike Johnson
Let’s talk politics!
Specifically, let’s talk about the new Speaker of the House, who is a gigantic raging bigot.
On October 3rd, House Representative Matt Gaetz initiated a vote to remove Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy from office, hanging McCarthy with his own rope. This was unprecedented; Speakers have stepped down from the position before, but none have been voted out of office, and certainly never in the middle of a congressional session.
Representative Patrick McHenry took McCarthy’s place as speaker pro tempore, and the House languished without an elected speaker for twenty-two days… until, on Wednesday, Representative Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House.
Allow me a brief aside: There exists a “Christian-defending ministry,” called Answers in Genesis, whose primary mission is to theologically justify right-wing Christians’ hatred of LGBT+ people. Anyway, they built a fucking ark in Williamstown, Kentucky.
Like, a fucking ark.
You know… of “Noah’s” fame?
They describe the ark as “full-size.” I don’t know what that means and I refuse to think about it, because I don’t believe in biblical literalism. Sorry!
Why do I bring up Answers in Genesis and their fucking ark, you ask? Well, our newest Speaker of the House was the founder, CEO and chief counsel of Freedom Guard, a public interest law firm in Louisiana… that once represented Answers in Genesis in a lawsuit against the state of Kentucky to ensure that they could build their fucking ark.
And it turns out that Speaker Johnson has plans to return to Answers in Genesis in April of next year for a fantastically transphobic conference! The event is scheduled on Answers in Gensis’ website, where they describe the existence of transgender people as a “war on women,” which they intend to overcome “for the glory of God.”
Sure, that sounds normal.
The webpage for the conference opens up with one of my favorite rhetoricals: “What is a woman?”
Thank you for spiking that stupid ass question into the theologically addled brain of every transphobic bible thumper on earth, Matt Walsh.
The webpage goes on to describe trans women as “men pretending to be women,” and insists that God only believes in two genders, and that your gender is “designated in the DNA as either male or female from the moment of fertilization,” which—despite how often transphobes ramble on about ‘basic biology’—is just factually untrue.
They close out with a simple call to action, that “women of God need to rise up, reclaim, and live out God’s good design for women for his glory.” Register today, and you too can learn what God wants you, as a woman, to do, with the help of people like Mike Johnson and… somebody who hosts a podcast, I think?
Johnson hasn’t confirmed whether or not he and his wife are still planning to attend the conference now that he’s been elected Speaker, and an Answers in Genesis spokesperson couldn’t confirm his attendance, but it speaks volumes that he was slated to speak in the first place.
But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that Johnson’s plans to hang out with a bunch of transphobes are hardly the most damning thing in his closet.
Let’s start with the fact that in 2021, Johnson spearheaded a massive effort to overturn the results of a presidential election, an absolutely shocking act of sedition that he has never once apologized for.
Besides that, Johnson has called same-sex marriage a “dark harbinger of chaos”—which sounds sick as hell, now that I think about it—and is such a bigot that, I shit you not, even Meghan McCain is against the man.
screenshot from twitter.com
Do you have any idea how rarely Meghan and I agree on anything? On any issue? This is historic! Unprecedented! Awful! It sucks, and I hate it!
Johnson also worked as counsel for an early iteration of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a vicious anti-LGBT hate group, during which time he apparently sued the city of New Orleans for mandating insurance policies cover the spouses of same-sex couples. He also wrote an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, in which he argued in favor of letting states criminalize consensual sex between two adults of the same gender.
Johnson has written about how much he hates those darn queer marriages multiple times, actually. He’s even tried to sponsor the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” a federal duplicate of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ vile “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Honestly, I’m just scratching the surface on Johnson’s track record of anti-LGBT Christian horse shit, and I think that’s terrifying. I don’t have the time or the space to cover everything awful thing he’s said and done in his short political career, and now he’s second in line for the presidency.
God willing, Speaker Johnson and his wife will board Noah’s Ark in April and an abrupt torrential rain will simply wash them out to sea, where they can become the whales’ problem.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.