Mike Johnson, the new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, claimed that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to people marrying their pets and pedophiles would seek the same rights to marry children.
Johnson made this argument in a column in a local newspaper when he supported a 2004 bill blocking same-sex marriage in Louisiana.
It was one of a series of public statements he made at the time that now threaten to overshadow his election as chairman.
Some Republicans were caught off guard by the comments that emerged as Johnson emerged victorious on Thursday, three chaotic weeks after the historic impeachment of his predecessor Kevin McCarthy.
Johnson wrote a series of opinion columns in The Shreveport Times in the mid-2000s while he was an attorney representing the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian advocacy group that campaigned against the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Mike Johnson (R-LA) is sworn in as Speaker of the House of Representatives
Mike and Kelly Johnson as a young couple
On September 12, 2004, he wrote: ‘If we change marriage for this small, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group.
‘Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles and others will be the next to claim equal protection. They already are.’
Johnson added: ‘There will be no legal basis for denying a bisexual the right to marry a partner of any gender, or a person to marry their pet.
“If everyone does what is right in their own eyes, chaos and sexual anarchy will ensue.”
He added that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural” and that “society cannot condone such a dangerous lifestyle.”
The future president wrote that “our entire democratic system (is) in danger by eroding its foundations.”
In a similar, earlier column on February 22, 2004, he argued against gay marriage because it would lead to a transsexual marriage.
He wrote, “If activist judges can reject thousands of years of history and legitimize same-sex marriage, then transsexualism and group marriages of any kind should logically follow.”
While making his case, Johnson cited the infamous incident three weeks earlier when pop star Janet Jackson accidentally exposed her breast during the Super Bowl halftime show.
He wrote, “If you’re shocked by the moral lapses at the Super Bowl, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
In 2004, Mike Johnson said that legalizing gay marriage would be far more shocking than exposing Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl halftime show.
Mike and Kelly Johnson
He went on to describe same-sex marriage as the “dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could bring down even the strongest republic.”
The following year he wrote: ‘Your race, religion and gender are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do. This is a free country, but we offer no special protection for everyone’s bizarre choices.”
In another column, he wrote that “by closing bedroom doors” and allowing people to engage in homosexual activity, the courts “opened a Pandora’s box,” he added.
Earlier, in February 2003, Johnson wrote the Alliance Defense Fund legal brief opposing a Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.
That ruling overturned state laws that had criminalized homosexual activity by consenting adults.
Over more than 45 pages, he argued that homosexual activity should be criminalized because it is a public health problem, citing several studies.
He said: ‘States have many legitimate reasons to prohibit non-conforming sexual intercourse between people of the same sex.’
Johnson added that by “closing these bedroom doors” and allowing people to engage in homosexual activity in private, the courts had “opened a Pandora’s box.”
He wrote that “all” gays “were able to change their abnormal lifestyle” and that “there is clearly no ‘right to sodomy’ in the Constitution.”
An article written by Mike Johnson in 2004
Johnson immediately faced criticism for his two-decade-old comments from gay rights activists and Democrats.
When he was elected chairman, Democratic Congresswoman Angie Craig of Minnesota, one of the few openly gay members of Congress, shouted, “Happy anniversary to my wife!”
There has been little criticism from Republicans, who have united behind Johnson after weeks of failing to agree on a new chairman.
Johnson was asked about his comments in an interview with Fox News on Thursday evening.
He told Sean Hannity, “Some of them I can’t even remember.”
The new Speaker added: “Take a Bible off the shelf and read it. That’s my worldview. That’s what I believe, so I make no apologies for it.
“I also genuinely love all people, regardless of their lifestyle choices. It’s not about the people themselves. I am a Bible-believing Christian.”
Mike Johnson speaks with Sean Hannity on Fox News
Johnson said he had been a lawyer defending religious freedom and was “called to defend these cases in court.”
Ultimately, in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all fifty states.
This week, Johnson made it clear that he is a ‘man of the rule of law’ and respects the laws of the land.
He said: ‘I have made a career of defending the rule of law, I respect the rule of law.’