The new House speaker called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.”
This is a very dangerous time to have someone like him in such a possition of authority. He really doesn’t want democracy. He is not OK with everyone doing their own thing, living their own lives, worshiping in their own way, being who they are. Nope, he doesn’t favor that at all. He insists on the right, demands it, to force everyone to worship as he does, live as he church doctrines say, have only the kids of sex he wants you to have, raise your children the way he demands, structure your home in a “Christian way” which means wives summit and be submissive to your husbands like good little half humans. Get the point! He wants to force his god down your throat. These same people once claimed gays wanted to force our lifestyle on everyone, but that is what he is demanding to do to the entire country! Think how now the Christians want special rights to discriminate and to be exempt from laws they don’t like because they are Christians. Think how they have screamed about being forced to live in a secular society, but they want the right to force everyone to live a religious lifestyle. Think how they would react if other religions demanded the same special rights or the right to force everyone to live as a devote Muslim? Very scary, these people are. Hugs. Scottie
“The government has replaced the Creator,” Mike Johnson said in a 2019 seminar appearance. “Government is becoming God.” He is pictured here addressing the House chamber after winning the speakership this month.Tom Williams/Zuma
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Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican House speaker, used to conduct a seminar in churches premised on the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation.” This ministry, as he has referred to it, is yet more evidence that Johnson is committed to a hardcore Christian fundamentalism that shapes his views of politics and government.
The seminar, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,” was organized by Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a company owned by his wife, Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist who calls herself a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The website for her counseling service—which was taken down shortly after Johnson became speaker—described the seminar, which featured both her and Johnson, as exploring several questions, such as, “What is happening in America and how do we fix it?” The list includes this query: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” There were different versions of the seminar running from two-hour-long lectures to retreats lasting two days.
Mike and Kelly Johnson, each a fundamentalist Christian and culture war battler who advocates adhering to what they call a “Biblical worldview,” launched this initiative in 2019. After one such presentation on February 24, 2019, at the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they are members—an event that also featured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council—a local television news show reported that the seminar’s goal was to “keep God in Government.” Johnson posted the article on his congressional website.
According to a Louisiana Baptist newsletter, the Johnsons intended to first pitch their seminars to Baptist churches in the Pelican State before expanding to other states. The publication reported that the couple’s goal was “to equip churches to take a stand against the cultural attacks now being directed at people of faith, the traditional family and basic freedoms embedded in the U.S. Constitution.” It noted that Johnson said he was compelled to create this new ministry while serving in the US House because he was concerned “that too many believers today feel ill-informed to provide substantive answers to fake arguments.” It quoted Johnson: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the Truth.” He was referring to what fundamentalists call “Biblical truth.”
A promotion blurb for the seminar described it this way: “As polls show that Christianity is in rapid decline in America, and the culture is growing more secularized and more coarsened, many believers feel ill-informed and ill-prepared to do anything to reverse these trends. Scripture is clear that we have an obligation to provide substantive answers… But HOW?”
At a “Answers for Our Times” seminar held at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in April 2019, Kelly Johnson proclaimed that “Biblical Christianity” is the only “valid worldview.” Nothing else, she said, “makes sense.” She contended that guidance to the problems of today can be found in the “simple answers in the Bible.” Mike Johnson referred to the Bible as the “owner’s manual” for “how things are supposed to operate” and called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.” Johnson complained that there is now “total chaos on the street… God’s not at the top anymore.” He added, “The problem is most people” want “the government to take care of us now, we want the government to provide us everything… It will not work because it defies the created order of the Creator… The government has replaced the Creator. Government is becoming God.”
Mike Johnson ran through a quick version of US history, in which he insisted, “We began as a Christian nation.” He pointed out that Christopher Columbus said that he journeyed to the Americas “to bring the gospel to unknown coast lands and people.” Johnson added, “We would call him an evangelical today.” Fired up, he offered a litany of statements from the nation’s founders, government officials, and Supreme Court officials who cited God or religion as essential to the United States. “Is this a Christian nation?” he asked. “Yes, we live in a post-Christian culture. I think that’s beyond dispute. You can’t even argue with a straight face that this did not begin as a Christian nation.”
At this seminar, Mike Johnson groused that few of his colleagues in government abide by or even recognize God’s principles—that is, his view of God’s principles—and he expressed great cynicism about his fellow politicians:
A shocking number of elected officials in this country and state do not have a fully formed philosophy of government. They don’t know what their world view is. They’re just moving around waiting for whatever the loudest voice or the most powerful lobbyist tells them how to vote. God help us. That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in… They poll it. It’s not necessarily what his constituents want. I try to do every day what my constituents want. But sometimes what your constituents want does not line up with the principles God gave us for government. And you have to have conviction enough to stand [up] to your own people in a town hall and say, “I know you feel that way, but this is what you’re missing.” And I’m telling you, there’s a tiny percentage of elected officials who are willing to do that.
Mike Johnson sees himself as part of small band of righteous officials who take on the hard task of governing strictly according to the tenets of Christian fundamentalism. He and Kelly are true believers. He has long associated with Christian nationalism; crusaded against gay rights and same-sex marriage; decried no-fault divorce; and pushed for a total ban on abortion. Her Christian counseling practice has compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest. They share a dark view of the modern world. In a sermon he preached in 2016, Johnson declared, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” And during a podcast last year with Jordan Peterson, the Canadian conservative provocateur, he said that “sinister” elites were responsible for orchestrating climate change as an issue to achieve global “control.”
In a time of political upheaval, cultural clashes, and war, it’s clear that Mike Johnson believes he has the solution. It’s not government of the people, but government shaped by his fundamentalist worldview. As his wife and partner-in-preaching says, nothing else makes sense. They possess the truth, and now, as he has become second in the line of presidential succession, he has the opportunity to meld power to this truth and serve the goal of making America a Christian nation.
This is 4 years old and I guess the person speaking is from England. But this is a great talk. It covers so much of what I want to say. It explains why the don’t say gay laws that in so many red states are so dangerous and harmful. Please take 13 minutes and 41 seconds to learn about this issue, learn why it is so important to gay kids to see themselves in the surrounding society, and that yes there are gay kids, even young kids that know they are different, know they are gay, and are scared / worried about it that need support with love. I love the question he asks, when was your child too young to learn about being straight? Because from birth all around them kids see straight couples and symbols of being straight in society. The same with gender, the haters say they don’t want the children to be taught gender in schools as they claim it sexualizes them. But society is structured around gender. We learn it from birth with nursery colors, types of toys, and the clothing we are put in. Hugs. Scottie
Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the well being crisis facing LGBT young people.
Tim Ramsey, the founder of award-winning non-profit Just Like Us, grew up believing that being gay was the worst thing he could be. Having come out, Tim launched Just Like Us to change the lives of other LGBT+ school students by empowering young people to challenge prejudice and champion LGBT+ equality at school and work. As the founder of School Diversity Week, the national celebration of LGBT+ equality in education, Tim has involved over 650,000 school students and teachers work to ensure every young person can be themselves and their best at school.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey, Founder of award-winning LGBT non-profit Just Like Us, argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the wellbeing crisis facing LGBT young people. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
The new definition will include single people and same-sex couples. It will consist of anyone needing medical interventions “in order to achieve a successful pregnancy either as an individual or with a partner.”
“We made it explicit that lack of access to the kind of gametes you need is a condition deserving of treatment,” Sean Tipton, ASRM’s chief advocacy and policy officer, told CNN.
“That is, the reason you may need medical assistance to build your family, it can be because your fallopian tubes don’t work, or it could be because your sperm don’t swim right. But it could also be because you’re single, or because you are in a relationship with a person who doesn’t have the kind of gametes you need. Those are legitimate causes of infertility, and they need to be treated accordingly.”
“It is our hope that this definition removes one of the excuses that insurance companies have attempted to use to deny patients coverage for the medical care they need to have children,” he added.
The previous definition only defined the term as failing to get pregnant after a year of having unprotected sex or undergoing therapeutic donor insemination in women younger than 35, or within six months for women over 35.
The updated definition will be published in about a week as a report in the group’s journal.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center have filed a federal lawsuit against a Tennessee law that requires HIV-positive sex workers to register for life as a “violent sex offender.”
The aforementioned advocacy organizations filed the lawsuit on behalf of the state LGBTQ+ advocacy groups OUTMemphis and four “Jane Doe” plaintiffs who were convicted under the law. The plaintiffs, which include a transgender woman, allege that they have faced discrimination and life struggles because of their violent sex offender status. These struggles have forced the trans woman to continue doing sex work, since finding a job can be difficult for someone on the registry.
Another plaintiff said that they were sent back to jail after violating the registry’s requirements. The plaintiffs allege that the law violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by handing harsher punishments to people with HIV, a chronic disease covered by the ADA’s anti-discrimination statutes. Tennessee is the only state with this law, according to the Edge Media Network.
“This statute solely targets people because of their HIV status and keeps them in cycles of poverty while posing absolutely zero benefit to public health and safety,” said Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis. “HIV stigma is becoming a thing of the past, and it’s time for state law to catch up.”
The lawsuit lists Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN), Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch, and Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada as defendants.
While sex work is a misdemeanor crime in Tennessee, the HIV criminalization law turns the crime into a felony. An estimated 83 Tennesseeans are currently in the registry because of it. Tennessee legislators passed the law in 1991 near the height of the AIDS epidemic when over 100,000 Americans had died from the illness, and scientists were still trying to find effective medical treatments against it.
In 2021, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia repealed their felony HIV criminalization laws. However, in 2022, Pennsylvania signed a law making it a felony to pass on a communicable disease when they “should have known” that they had it — the law included HIV.
As of 2022, 35 states have laws that criminalize HIV exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many of the laws were passed at a time when little was known about HIV and millions were dying from the virus.
Medical professionals have said that HIV criminalization laws do nothing to stop the spread of the virus and may even encourage people not to get tested for fear that the knowledge could subject them to criminal penalties.
“Many of these state laws criminalize actions that cannot transmit HIV – such as biting or spitting – and apply regardless of actual transmission, or intent,” the CDC wrote. “After more than 40 years of HIV research and significant biomedical advancements to treat and prevent HIV transmission, many state laws are now outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV.”
A 2018 Williams Institute study on HIV criminalization in Georgia found that “Black men and Black women were more likely to be arrested for HIV-related offenses than their white counterparts.” While 26% of HIV-related arrests were of white males, 46% of HIV-related arrests were of Black males. Additionally, 11 % of those arrested were white females, while 16% were Black females.
It’s not rhetoric, but action that proves how different the two parties are. Can we PLEASE stop treating them as if they’re two sides of the same coin? It’s not only lazy, but dead wrong.
Wow, really pushing the religious idea a woman’s place is to obey the men in her life, she is owned by her husband, and along with the misogyny of strict 1950s gender role there is the long debunked idea of what makes kids gay, only now just pushed on to trans kids also. These people simply refuse to accept modern science which has shown that kids are born with their sexual orientation and their view of their gender identity. Regardless of how often, how forceful, how authoritarian the person telling them they are not gay, gay kids know they are. Same with trans kids, despite the same people telling them they are the gender they were assigned at birth, they KNOW who they really are inside. But this is what we face with the religious Nationalist right wing take over and push to return to the 1950s. These are the same people that deny other science because their bibles / really their preachers / priest / pastors tell them that science is wrong because the bible is right. These same people claim there was a worldwide flood and that an ark built by a 600-year-old man held every creature on earth, and also the world is only 6000 years old so that same family had a lot of fucking / child birthing to do to get to the number of humans alive today. None of it makes sense if you try to take it literally. But they don’t care, their feelings / beliefs are more important than reality or facts. They feel the same on sexual / gender issues. Yet in at least 26 US states these people have the majority in government. Can the US afford this? Hugs. Scottie.
It also tells dads to go on “man time” dates with their sons and make them do manly things like hunt animals and mow the lawn.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) — a Christian anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that uses its professional-sounding name to push transphobic and anti-abortion propaganda — has unveiled a new website encouraging parents to send their trans kids to conversion therapy. The website tells mothers not to be “dominant” and not to be “critical” of nor “display hurt or angry emotions” towards their husbands.
The website, called the “Biological Integrity Initiative,” offers outdated and non-clinically backed “resources” for parents, teens, physicians, schools, and policymakers, all geared towards denying the identities of trans youth, particularly those of trans girls. It introduces gender-questioning teens to the tale of right-wing de-transitioner Chloe Cole, tells teachers to oppose trans-inclusive school policies (referred to as “gender interventions”), and tells policymakers that they must pass bans on gender-affirming healthcare to “protect civilization” and “human dignity.”
It tells mothers not to be critical of their husbands or “overly sensitive” to their sons. Mothers are advised to frequently “compliment the father” and to refrain from showing their children any “angry emotions” towards their husbands. It also tells mothers to “set a good example of womanhood” for their daughters because, if they don’t, their daughters may “develop a wrong perception… and may resist embracing a female identity.”
“A mother who is not emotionally connected to her daughter may leave her daughter craving motherly love. Likewise, a father who is not closely connected to his son may leave a son craving fatherly love,” the site’s handout on “Affirming Your Daughter’s and Son’s Sexual Identity” states.
“Mothers should not favor a son over his father, even if the son is more responsive and compassionate than the husband,” the handout continues. “If mothers make this mistake, the son may identify with the mother and fail to bond with the father.”
This concept — that emotionally distant and physically unaffectionate parents create gay or “gender-confused” children — is a popular but widely debunked concept from 19th-century Freudian psychology. While psychologists have observed that neglected and abused children may risk their personal safety to find support and affection from other sources, there’s zero proof that parental distance causes homosexuality or trans identity.
Similarly, the handout says that molestation, sexual abuse, and graphic pornography can cause trans identity. The same has been said of homosexuality, and there is no proof to back up either claim.
The group tells fathers to be “physically active” and “wrestle on the floor” with their sons, “play tackle and praise him for being tough when he is knocked down,” and also to go on “man time” dates with the boy. It also tells dads to have their sons help mow the lawn, fix the toilet, shovel snow, build model cars and benches, go hunting to kill animals, and “throw, kick and dribble a ball… even if he chooses not to play sports.”
Under the website’s “Teen FAQ,” it states, “There is no evidence that opposite-sex hormones make you feel better,” even though a large-scale 2023 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that hormone therapy improves mental health for trans youth. The FAQ also claims that “opposite sex hormones can increase thoughts of hurting yourself,” “increase unhealthiness,” “may cause permanent infertility,” and “will make teens ‘a medical patient for life.’”
The site backs up some of its claims by referring to a 12-year-old Swedish study of data on 324 trans people collected from 1973 to 2003. The study found higher rates of suicide and criminal convictions among trans individuals, but such actions may be explained by transphobia and the fewer economic opportunities and social support resources for trans people.
As for “infertility,” trans journalist Erin Reed noted that fertility counseling is a regular part of any medical care for trans youth. Reed said that the ACPeds site pushes gender exploratory therapy, “a new type of conversion therapy which seeks to persuade transgender individuals that their gender identity stems from anything but authentic transness.” The ACPeds website’s “Find a Therapist” section links to numerous Christian and Catholic conversion therapy groups.
In her newsletter, Reed wrote, “The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association frequently denies that it engages in conversion therapy. They assert that their therapeutic approach is ‘neutral in nature’ and ‘does not prejudge outcomes.’ Yet, this association opposes bans on conversion therapy, submits public comments in favor of blocking Title IX protections against gender discrimination for trans students, and its official account has been observed endorsing tweets like ‘trans healthcare is the latest in a long line of medical fads.’ Such actions hardly mirror the claims of a ‘neutral, non-prejudiced’ entity.”
I love this substack and the effort the author goes to in presenting the facts. I wanted to share the titles of a few posts to show you what is going on. Hugs. Scottie
A paper about “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” retracted in March, was republished in a journal with a shady record. Major anti-trans accounts celebrated this as a “victory.”
The website leans heavily on religious therapy and “gender exploratory therapy” a misleadingly named type of therapy meant to convince trans people they are not truly transgender.
Republican Attorneys General representing 18 states have filed a brief in Dekker v. Weida, a case in which trans people in Florida have been denied Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care.
It has been a difficult year for transgender people in the US. Looking ahead, the battle lines are becoming clearer, as 2024 promises to be a decision point for the future of trans people in America.
Explosive allegations have emerged about Jamie Reed’s allegations against a gender affirming care clinic in Missouri. One family alleges Reed lied about the cause of their child’s liver damage.
In a major ruling released Wednesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States ruled that Florida’s ban on drag will continue to be blocked from enforcement statewide.
Photo: Shutterstock
HIV criminalization lawsPhoto: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
