'Give him the benefit of the doubt': Why one gay GOP leader is holding his fire on Mike Johnson — and wants to know if he has any gay friends

• Speaker Mike Johnson's anti-LGBTQ record is extreme, even for a Republican.
• But the head of a prominent LGBTQ conservative group wants to give him the "benefit of the doubt."

Long before he was elected to the House of Representatives in 2016, Mike Johnson argued for the criminalization of gay sex, suggested that "rampant homosexual behavior" led to the downfall of the Roman Empire, and worked for a group that pushed conversion therapy.

With his elevation to Speaker of the House, Johnson is now the highest-ranking elected Republican in America. He has indicated in recent interviews that he is not interested in re-litigating settled law, particularly as it pertains to same-sex marriage. Even so, his record on LGBTQ issues is extreme, even for a Republican.

To understand how LGBTQ Republicans — somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of all LGBTQ Americans — view Johnson, I recently spoke with Charles Moran, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans. Founded in 1977, Log Cabin is the country's leading conservative LGBTQ organization, and claims more than 10,000 members nationwide.

During an interview at the organization's headquarters in a Capitol Hill townhouse, Moran spoke about the conversations he's had with Johnson's staff, his perspective on Johnson's views, and why he's willing to offer the new speaker the "benefit of the doubt."

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How aware were you of Mike Johnson before he became speaker?

I had no idea who he was before becoming Speaker.

Obviously, I think everybody was just trying to get up to speed the minute his name was being floated. We did Steve Scalise, and then we did Tom Emmer, and then… was Johnson the next one? Was there any other name in there?

You're forgetting Jim Jordan.

Oh, Jim Jordan. Yeah.

I mean, I think everybody was just kind of riding that wave. I have personal opinions on all of these people, we as Log Cabin have engaged at some level with all of those people — until we got to Mike Johnson. He's somebody we just had not engaged with, and we don't have strong relationships with legislators in Louisiana.

In your initial statement on Johnson's election as speaker, you wrote that it was "imperative that he work to implement an agenda that advances the interests of all Americans." That portion was in bold. What did you mean by that?

Now that he's the Speaker of the House, he has to speak for not only his district, but also the Republican Conference and the entire House of Representatives. When you're looking at carrots and sticks, I want to always start with a carrot, I want to be able to give folks the benefit of the doubt.

Now that they're in a different type of leadership role where they have a much larger constituency to take into consideration, what I want to be able to do is provide them with the ammunition and the backup to show that a vast majority of not just Americans, but Republicans in this country, support equality and equal access for the LGBT community — the Ls, the Gs, the Bs, and the Ts.

So that was the intended purpose of the bold, was to remind the new speaker and his team of his new expanded constituency that may not be as loud and as vocal in his district.

What do you mean by "ammunition?"

Facts, figures, personal stories, and narratives. Those are all things that impact a legislator. Research has shown that if you know somebody who's LGBT — an L, a G, a B, or a T — you have a much higher chance of being supportive of those equality issues.

Again, not to predetermine or predispose the speaker, I just don't know how many gay people he knows. His district is very deeply red, it's socially very conservative. My family's from Louisiana, so I know the culture.

But that's not to predispose people for being hateful, who are from the South. They're some of the nicest, kindest people. But at the same time, if you don't have a lot of that type of diversity, and you don't have a lot of personal stories, or personal experiences, you may not know how important it is to take those into consideration when you're voting on issues, and when you're expounding on public policy positions. We want to be a part of the leadership team.

Have you all reached out to his team yet?

Yes, and they responded within four hours to set up a meeting with senior staff.

Has that meeting occurred? How was it?

Yes. It was a week and a half ago.

Very supportive, it was — I'm not gonna tell you who it was, but it was with senior folks in his office. I used Congresswoman Kat Cammack as a go-between, she personally has a good relationship with the speaker. They put us in touch with Speaker Johnson's office, and literally, once I sent them the email, they responded and set up a meeting, on a weekend, the next day. That's fast in this town.

I explained what I wanted to talk to them about, and it's some of the things we're talking about now, like: how are we going to discuss this? Where's the speaker on some of these issues? Some things they had answers to, some things they didn't.

So I appreciate the fact that we have allies on the Hill who are willing to help, and how fast the speaker's team engaged with us. I mean, there's a lot of times when you send these emails and it goes into the ether.

Could you get a little bit more specific about what you discussed?

The most important thing that came out of it was just kind of a framework on how the speaker views things going forward.

I mean, I did not walk in with a list of 10 questions on, How does he feel about X? Where's he going to be on Y? What is he going to vote on Z? Obviously, we know where his past has been. His writings, his voting record on some things, some of it's more troubling than others.

But moving forward as speaker, again, we want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because now he's got a much larger constituency, and quite honestly, really big issues. I mean, averting a government shutdown was a really big test, trying to get some of these other bills passed is a really big test.

The two things that we came away with from that conversation was one, the speaker is not looking to re-litigate settled law. So I took that as, you know, things like Obergefell, things like Respect for Marriage, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, you know, any of the stuff that has been voted on or just settled already. He's not necessarily looking to deal with that, so that's very helpful for me.

The second operating principle that they're going with is building consensus. He has a mandate and a job as the speaker to build consensus to get bills passed, not just these funding bills, but other issues around public policy. So things that do not have that consensus are things that he's not going to be pushing, which gives me cautious optimism that he's not going to be picking up any kind of hot-button, hardline social issues and trying to push in opposition to LGBT equality issues.

Before Mike Johnson, Tom Emmer was the party's nominee for speaker — for a few hours. But he was forced to withdraw his candidacy in part due to concerns about his support for the Respect for Marriage Act.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said she voted against him in part because he voted for the "Democrat gay marriage bill." There was also Rick Allen from Georgia, who reportedly told him during a closed-door caucus meeting, regarding his vote for that bill, that "You need to get right with Jesus." What does that episode say to you about the state of the party?

Well, the last thing that I'd do is use statements from two members from rural Georgia as a blanket filter through which to view all members of the House Republican Conference, especially people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. They don't represent the entire conference. If they want to criticize people like Tom Emmer like that, that's their prerogative.

Okay, so a couple members didn't like the fact that Emmer voted for the Respect for Marriage Act. Guess what? 47 Republicans, on the first round, voted for it. Yeah, there are members of the House conference that don't support gay marriage, guess what? That bill passed the House, and it passed the Senate only because Republicans voted for it. Which also doesn't get the type of credit it needs to.

So, too bad, so sad, the House and the Senate reflected the will of the American people, and then Joe Biden signed the bill.

So you're out of step, you're out of line, Marjorie, if you've got a problem with gay marriage. I've had Marjorie Taylor Greene sit in this room, and we've had conversations about areas of things that we agree on, and things we don't. I'm not going to shit all over her because I disagree with her on this. I'm sure there's plenty of other reasons why she didn't support Tom Emmer.

A government funding bill that Johnson's conference has proposed would slash the budget of the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US Initiative. To former President Donald Trump's credit, this is a program that his administration put a lot of muscle behind. Do those proposed cuts concern you?

Absolutely. Republicans have been on record for decades supporting HIV-AIDS funding.

So this is an absolute backslide, and a backstab. And I think it's a byproduct of what we saw over the summer with Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light, Target and tuck-friendly swimsuits, and I think anything LGBT policy-related right now is subject to a heightened level of scrutiny because of the pendulum swing — it moved so far to the left, and now the conversation is sliding so far to the right.

This is a very serious concern. Republicans need to be on the record, not because it looks good, but because it's good public policy, and it's the right thing to do.

And if anybody who claims to be a Trump supporter votes against this, I'm just gonna say, "if you vote against this, you're voting against President Trump's marquee health policy initiative."

Going back to Johnson, you've alluded to his past. I wanted to throw out a few specific things and see what you think about them.

In 2003, he argued on behalf of the criminalization of gay sex. He also said in 2008 that "rampant homosexual behavior" contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. He gave legal advice to a group that promoted conversion therapy. What do you make of that past?

I mean, these are all issues, statements, things that are out of line.

I don't think during that time, President Obama or then-Vice President Biden were supportive of LGBT equality. I don't think that Hillary Clinton was at that time either. It's not an excuse, it's not a denial. I just think it's entertaining that the mainstream media and a lot of Democrats want to sit here and like, go back to the early 2000s on these things, and they do it with Republicans, but they don't want to do it with Democrats.

They weren't arguing to keep Lawrence v. Texas in place, though.

Well, but Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama were going on national television and discussing their opposition to same-sex marriage, and were supporting the Defense of Marriage Act. They were supporting Don't Ask, Don't Tell. This organization, Log Cabin, we're the only national LGBT organization that actually had a successful federal lawsuit challenging Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Our organization was going up against [then-Attorney General] Eric Holder. Eric Holder and Barack Obama were arguing to keep DADT in place. But funny that's not really mentioned or brought up.

But those [statements from Johnson] are out of sync with where the Republican Party is, it's out of sync with where the country is, and it may have been more in sync back in 2003, and 2004, but today, it's totally out of sync. Democrats have been given the opportunity to grow and develop their opinions, and I would expect everybody to give Republicans the opportunity to do so as well.

I mean, I know that he introduced a version of the Florida parental rights bill on the federal level.

I was going to ask you about that.

I haven't looked specifically at the text of that bill, and I don't remember what the grade and age level was…

Ten years old. It was the "Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022." It would prohibit federal funds from being used to promote "any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10."

Critics say that the definition of sexually-oriented material includes "any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects." Folks like the Human Rights Campaign say that this is an effort to "stigmatize and marginalize" the LGBTQ community.

So age 10 is what — third or fourth grade? Vast numbers of Americans, according to public polling, agree with Speaker Johnson's position on that. [Editor's note: Polling from 2022 found that a slim 51% majority supported Florida's Parental Rights in Education Law, known to critics as "Don't Say Gay."]

So, the HRC can sit there and say that this is discriminatory. That's just out of line, and out of sync. Log Cabin disagrees with that. In 2022, the first version of the Florida parental rights bill, Log Cabin had a hand in helping craft that. At the time, we supported it. In 2023, the age was taken up to 18. We opposed it, because that is out of sync.

Anything that [HRC] opposes, or anything that tries to put some sort of norm or decency into this, they're just going to call it transphobic and homophobic. That's what they do. It's not based in any kind of reality, and it's certainly not based in anything where the public currently is. And this is part of the reason why we're seeing such extreme backlash to LGBT rights. It's exactly because of things like what HRC is saying. And it's dangerous.

You described Johnson's views in 2003 as being out of sync. Now here he is, last year, introducing this bill. Critics see a broader animus behind this. They say yes, maybe the text of the legislation is reasonable, but there's a homophobic intent there, there's an anti-LGBTQ animus behind it. Do you think that's the case at all?

I think that he's really passionate around some of these socially conservative issues. You know, it tracks with where he is on abortion. I'm not surprised it tracks with where he is on gay marriage, it tracks with where he is on LGBT acceptance issues in society.

Again, I've never met the man and I haven't had the conversation of, do you have anybody in either your family, or in your close network of friends, or even your extended network of friends, who's gay? Like, do you know anyone? Have you ever had a gay staff member? Have you actually been in a trusted, safe space where you can actually ask some of these questions and quote-unquote, get to know a gay, and have it done from a positive, not accusatory standpoint?

But right now, I actually don't really care what his personal opinion is on these things. I need to know that as the Speaker of the House, he's going to lead from that place of consensus building, and not looking to overturn or repeal things that have already been voted on, or that the Supreme Court has already decided.

His office has committed to me that that's his framework for viewing things moving forward. So as long as he sticks to that, I'm okay.

So it's not maybe as "ideal" as we wanted, but we've got to see if this works.