“Go pick up a Bible,” says Speaker Mike Johnson, arguing against LGBTQ+ rights.

Regarding his homophobic remarks and deeds, Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson has come under scrutiny.

He declared that his worldview is founded on reading the Bible and that he genuinely loves everyone, regardless of their lifestyle choices. On Wednesday, it was confirmed that Johnson would become the next speaker of the house. This is the fourth candidate to hold the position since Kevin McCarthy was removed from his own congressional conference earlier this month by far-right delegates. Prior to joining Congress in 2016, Johnson worked as a state legislator and an attorney for right-wing Christian organisations, advocating for extreme viewpoints such as opposition to LGBTQ+ rights and abortion.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) has labelled the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) a hate group due to Johnson’s work for the organisation, which has garnered a lot of attention. But according to the SPLC, the ADF has backed state-sanctioned sterilisation of transgender individuals abroad, recriminalised sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalised them overseas, asserted that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society, and claimed that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to commit paedophilia.

Sean Hannity, Johnson’s host, questioned him about his views on homosexuality, accusing him of being wicked, sinful, and against gay marriage. Johnson claimed he was a litigator who was asked to uphold the state’s marriage amendments and that he was unaware of some of the ADF’s remarks regarding homosexuality.

Previously, CNN uncovered editorials written by Johnson for a newspaper in Shreveport, Louisiana. Johnson claimed that homosexuality was “inherently unnatural,” that it would encourage legalised paedophilia, and that it might even bring down the democratic system as a whole. Additionally, he referred to same-sex marriage as “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic” when it was announced that it would become legal in the US in 2015.

In December 2022, in the face of violent incidents against the LGBTQ+ community and conservative backlash over gender issues, Joe Biden signed historic bipartisan legislation protecting same-sex marriages into law.