Mike Johnson Said Same-Sex Marriage Would Lead to People Marrying Their Pets, Wanted to Sentence Abortion Doctors to “Hard Labor”

By now you’ve likely heard that Representative Mike Johnson—the congressman Republicans finally elected as the new Speaker of the House after 22 days of chaos—played a significant role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, a lowlight on his résumé that is obviously deeply concerning for the future of democracy. Also extremely worrisome? Johnson’s wildly bigoted remarks about homosexuality over the years, and the fact that he supported criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults.

CNN’s KFile reports that prior to his career in politics, Johnson wrote a series of deeply homophobic editorials in his role as an attorney for the socially conservative legal group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom.