New House Speaker Mike Johnson, who will almost certainly turn into Jim Jordan if you get him wet or feed him after midnight, has a real problem with gay people. In fact, he thinks homosexuality is so seismically sinful, it has the unique power to end civilizations.
As Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson recently reported, Johnson once worked with the notorious gay-conversion group Exodus International on its annual Day of Truth event, a sad bastardization of the pro-LGBTQ+, anti-bullying Day of Silence. As Clawson put it, “The thinking behind the ‘Day of Truth’ appears to have been, ‘Oh, kids are going to oppose anti-LGBTQ+ bullying? Well, let’s organize a day to make clear that bullying is not going anywhere.’”
RELATED STORY: New details keep emerging about how bigoted new Speaker Mike Johnson is
So you see where this dude is coming from. CNN did a deep dive into Johnson’s past work with Exodus International, and in the process it unearthed some of the bizarro beliefs Johnson has espoused in the past, including the notion that Rome was somehow undone by its permissive attitudes toward homosexuality.
Of course, the notion that Rome fell because of homosexuality is all kinds of absurd. The Roman state persisted in the form of a republic or empire for more than 1,000 years, and homosexuality was widely accepted over much of that time. But it took centuries for the society to unravel.
For instance, as The Advocate writes, after his male lover Antinous died by drowning, Emperor Hadrian “was said to have suffered great grief at Antinous’s death, and he elevated his late lover to the status of a god.” But he was hardly alone.
In fact, Rome fell roughly 150 years after becoming Christian, so it would make far more sense to say Rome was undone by Christianity. And in the 300s, as Rome was fixing to go Tituses up, it actually sought to crack down on homosexuality.
Writing for the History News Network, Robert Frakes, a professor of history at California State University, Bakersfield, noted that the late Roman Empire had begun to reverse its previously permissive attitudes toward gay sex.
Sadly, Johnson appears to have fallen prey to both confirmation bias and the post hoc fallacy, whose name is derived from the phrase “post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” which as we all know is Latin for “Jesus Christ, dude. Read a fucking book.”
In other words, it would make just as much sense for future historians to say Western civilization became untenable after Klondike discontinued the Choco Taco. It had nothing to do with climate change and creeping fascism.
So Johnson is not just a bigot, he’s intellectually shallow and profoundly dishonest as well. In other words, he’s a Republican. Who thinks weird things. And acts on them. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?
RELATED STORY: ‘Christian’ Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t into sharing his bread with the poor
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
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As Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson recently reported, Johnson once worked with the notorious gay-conversion group Exodus International on its annual Day of Truth event, a sad bastardization of the pro-LGBTQ+, anti-bullying Day of Silence. As Clawson put it, “The thinking behind the ‘Day of Truth’ appears to have been, ‘Oh, kids are going to oppose anti-LGBTQ+ bullying? Well, let’s organize a day to make clear that bullying is not going anywhere.’”
RELATED STORY: New details keep emerging about how bigoted new Speaker Mike Johnson is
So you see where this dude is coming from. CNN did a deep dive into Johnson’s past work with Exodus International, and in the process it unearthed some of the bizarro beliefs Johnson has espoused in the past, including the notion that Rome was somehow undone by its permissive attitudes toward homosexuality.
Of course, the notion that Rome fell because of homosexuality is all kinds of absurd. The Roman state persisted in the form of a republic or empire for more than 1,000 years, and homosexuality was widely accepted over much of that time. But it took centuries for the society to unravel.
For instance, as The Advocate writes, after his male lover Antinous died by drowning, Emperor Hadrian “was said to have suffered great grief at Antinous’s death, and he elevated his late lover to the status of a god.” But he was hardly alone.
In fact, Rome fell roughly 150 years after becoming Christian, so it would make far more sense to say Rome was undone by Christianity. And in the 300s, as Rome was fixing to go Tituses up, it actually sought to crack down on homosexuality.
Writing for the History News Network, Robert Frakes, a professor of history at California State University, Bakersfield, noted that the late Roman Empire had begun to reverse its previously permissive attitudes toward gay sex.
Sadly, Johnson appears to have fallen prey to both confirmation bias and the post hoc fallacy, whose name is derived from the phrase “post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” which as we all know is Latin for “Jesus Christ, dude. Read a fucking book.”
In other words, it would make just as much sense for future historians to say Western civilization became untenable after Klondike discontinued the Choco Taco. It had nothing to do with climate change and creeping fascism.
So Johnson is not just a bigot, he’s intellectually shallow and profoundly dishonest as well. In other words, he’s a Republican. Who thinks weird things. And acts on them. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?
RELATED STORY: ‘Christian’ Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t into sharing his bread with the poor
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Campaign Action