- Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected to be the speaker of the House on Wednesday.
- He has a history of making anti-LGBTQ+ remarks and opposing the community's rights in lawsuits.
Newly-elected speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has a history of making anti-LGBTQ+ statements, once going so far as saying homosexuality was a "dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy."
The 51-year-old congressman made the statement in an editorial that ran in The Times, his hometown newspaper in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2004, according to CNN.
In another editorial in the same publication, and highlighted by CNN, he described homosexuality as an "inherently unnatural" and "dangerous lifestyle.
He said it was a threat to "the entire democratic system."
"If everyone does what is right in his own eyes, chaos and sexual anarchy will result," he wrote.
In a further 2005 editorial unearthed by the publication, he wrote that he "strongly opposed" a move to include sexual orientation and gender identity in his native Shreveport's employment discrimination laws, calling it "unnecessary."
"Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do," he wrote, adding: "This is a free country, but we don't give special protections for every person's bizarre choices."
Since the start of his career as a lawyer, Johnson has also used his position to oppose LGBTQ+ rights legislation.
He served as an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a leading Christian law firm committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life, according to its website.
The Southern Poverty Law Center listed the ADF as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group in 2016 for its support for the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults and state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people, among other reasons.
While working for the ADF, Johnson wrote an amicus brief, first published by CNN, opposing a US Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state laws that criminalized consenting same-sex relationships in 2003.
"Make no mistake, the Lawrence decision opens the door to the undermining of many important laws and is ultimately a strategic first shot for the homosexual lobby's ultimate prize — the redefinition of marriage," he wrote in an editorial for Shreveport's The Times newspaper.
The following year, he defended Louisiana's proposed statewide ban on same-sex marriages in the courts, per the case details.
Johnson and the ADF organized a counterprotest known as the "Day of Truth" in 2005 amid the country's Day of Silence demonstrations, which were intended to confront anti-gay prejudice in schools, the Associated Press reported.
In 2015, he founded Freedom Guard, a non-profit legal ministry designed to assist churches and win landmark religious liberty cases across the country, the religious community magazine The Bridge reported.
Since becoming a congressman for the state of Louisiana in 2016, Johnson has voted against bipartisan legislation to codify same-sex marriage, worked to overturn the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, and introduced the "Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022."
In his new role as House speaker — the second in line of succession to the presidency — Johnson can make or break President Joe Biden's agenda, stymie opposition, and spearhead the GOP's agenda, per the BBC.
Johnson's office did not immediately reply to Insider's request for comment.